Systematic Review of Scales for Measuring Infectious Disease–Related Stigma

Infectious disease outbreaks are associated with substantial stigma, which can have negative effects on affected persons and communities and on outbreak control. Thus, measuring stigma in a standardized and validated manner early in an outbreak is critical to disease control. We reviewed existing s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Amy Paterson, Ashleigh Cheyne, Benjamin Jones, Stefan Schilling, Louise Sigfrid, Jeni Stolow, Lina Moses, Piero Olliaro, Amanda Rojek
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2024-03-01
Series:Emerging Infectious Diseases
Subjects:
Online Access:https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/3/23-0934_article
Description
Summary:Infectious disease outbreaks are associated with substantial stigma, which can have negative effects on affected persons and communities and on outbreak control. Thus, measuring stigma in a standardized and validated manner early in an outbreak is critical to disease control. We reviewed existing scales used to assess stigma during outbreaks. Our findings show that many different scales have been developed, but few have been used more than once, have been adequately validated, or have been tested in different disease and geographic contexts. We found that scales were usually developed too slowly to be informative early during an outbreak and were published a median of 2 years after the first case of an outbreak. A rigorously developed, transferable stigma scale is needed to assess and direct responses to stigma during infectious disease outbreaks.
ISSN:1080-6040
1080-6059