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@#Introduction: A sustainable diet which is healthy and environmentally friendly provides the means of climate change mitigation in addition to promoting health of the population. There is an urgent need to have an indicator to measure if one’s diet is sustainable. This paper aimed to validate a newly developed Sustainable Diet Index (SDI) among young Malaysian adults. The SDI was developed based on the dietary guidelines of a sustainable diet. Methods: Five indicators (rice, animal-based food, plant-based food, food waste, and packaging) were included in the SDI. The index was validated via content validity, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) among young Malaysian adults. The dietary assessment tool used was an Android application named Sustainable Food Record. Results: Content validity showed fair to moderate correlations (0.331 - 0.816) between the indicators in the SDI. EFA produced five final factors with eight indicators in the index as follows: 1) fruits and vegetables; 2) dairy, eggs, and meat; 3) rice, cereals, and grain products; 4) food packaging; and 5) food waste management with strong factor loadings (0.760 – 0.984). All five factors with eight indicators were retained and proceeded with CFA. The fit indices from CFA demonstrated that the model was an absolutely fit. Conclusion: The validated SDI can be used as a tool to measure the sustainability of an individual’s diet in Malaysia, incorporating both health and environment considerations.

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PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review aims to identify the key factors, methods, and spatial units used in the development and validation of the heat vulnerability index (HVI) and discuss the underlying limitations of the data and methods by evaluating the performance of the HVI. RECENT FINDINGS: Thirteen studies characterizing the factors of the HVI development and relating the index with validation data were identified. Five types of factors (i.e., hazard exposure, demographic characteristics, socioeconomic conditions, built environment, and underlying health) of the HVI development were identified, and the top five were social cohesion, race, and/or ethnicity, landscape, age, and economic status. The principal component analysis/factor analysis (PCA/FA) was often used in index development, and four types of spatial units (i.e., census tracts, administrative area, postal code, grid) were used for establishing the relationship between factors and the HVI. Moreover, although most studies showed that a higher HVI was often associated with the increase in health risk, the strength of the relationship was weak. SUMMARY: This review provides a retrospect of the major factors, methods, and spatial units used in development and validation of the HVI and helps to define the framework for future studies. In the future, more information on the hazard exposure, underlying health, governance, and protection awareness should be considered in the HVI development, and the duration and location of validation data should be strengthened to verify the reliability of HVI. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40641-021-00173-3.

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OBJECTIVES: Intrinsic capacity is a composite of five domains that summarizes the physical and mental capacities of an individual. Intrinsic capacity is increasing in relevance for adapting health systems to population ageing. Therefore, our objective was to analyse how intrinsic capacity has been assessed in older adults and if these measurements have been validated, as an initial step towards the construction of a standard intrinsic capacity index. DESIGN: Narrative review with electronic searches performed in PubMed and Cochrane databases, including the studies which used the term "intrinsic capacity" in the context of human ageing and health. The full text was then accessed to select studies with at least one operationalised domain of intrinsic capacity. We also looked for information on the validity and reliability of the reported measures of intrinsic capacity. RESULTS: We included ten articles reporting a quantitative measurement of intrinsic capacity. There were two intrinsic capacity scores which combined retrospective data on the intrinsic capacity domains sub-scores, with low concordance among tests chosen to measure each domain. Two studies reported on reliability and validity of the IC scores. The main gaps in the construction and validation process were a) analysis undertaken with each domain separately rather than for the construct of intrinsic capacity, b) lack of a clear conceptual and operational definition of the vitality domain, c) summary score that depends upon the distribution of the study sample. CONCLUSION: Further validation of the intrinsic capacity concept is needed, together with more robust approaches to measure it. A standard index of IC has not been validated for translation into clinical or research purposes.

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BACKGROUND: Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a human-rights violation with adverse long-term and inter-generational consequences. Redefining VAWG as legally unacceptable is one strategy for social change. The co-occurrence of national laws against VAWG is understudied, and tools to monitor the national legal environment are lacking. We developed the Laws on Violence against Women and Girls Index (LoVI) to measure global progress to develop comprehensive national legislation against child marriage, sexual harassment, domestic violence, and marital rape. METHODS: Using data from 2016 and 2018 for 189 countries from the World Bank Women, Business, and the Law database, we used factor analysis to assess the dimensionality of the LoVI. We examined the distribution of the LoVI across countries and regions, and the relationship of national rankings on the LoVI with those for other indicators from the United Nations, Demographic and Health Surveys, and World Factbook. RESULTS: A single LoVI factor showed good model fit in the factor analysis. National LoVI rankings were positively associated with gender equality in human development and economic rights-related rankings and negatively associated with rates of justifying wife beating and of lifetime and prior-year physical and/or sexual IPV. The LoVI was not associated with national indicators for human development and income inequality. CONCLUSION: The LoVI is a concise, coherent, validated index to monitor the progress of nations on adopting comprehensive legislation to advance 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 5, to eliminate VAWG.

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This examination of four embedded validity indices for the Repeated Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) explores the potential utility of integrating cognitive and self-reported depressive measures. Examined indices include the proposed RBANS Performance Validity Index (RBANS PVI) and the Charleston Revised Index of Effort for the RBANS (CRIER). The CRIER represented the novel integration of cognitive test performance and depression self-report information. The sample included 234 patients without dementia who could be identified as having demonstrated either valid or invalid responding, based on standardized criteria. Sensitivity and specificity for invalid responding varied widely, with the CRIER emerging as the best all-around index (sensitivity = 0.84, specificity = 0.90, AUC = 0.94). Findings support the use of embedded response validity indices, and suggest that the integration of cognitive and self-report depression data may optimize detection of invalid responding among older Veterans.

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