Resources for Families with Cardiovascular Disease
Discussing Your Heart Condition with Children and Youth
It can be difficult to talk to your child about your heart event or diagnosis. This guide was designed to help you navigate your way through discussing your heart condition with children.
Living Well as a Caregiver
This guide is for caregivers and families of people with heart disease. It contains tips, tools, and resources to support you in your role, and strategies for taking care of your mental, physical, and emotional health.
What are Social Determinants of Health?
Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are the social factors and conditions that influence people’s health outcomes. SDoH factors are comprised of upstream forces and structures (e.g., governance, societal values, healthcare quality, systemic discrimination) and more downstream ‘intermediary’ factors (e.g., community integration, family-level factors) that cascade into determining individuals’ health. In general, SDoH can be grouped into 5 domains: economic stability, education access & quality, health care access & quality, neighbourhood & built environment, and social & community context.
SDoH Scales
The following scales measure both upstream and downstream factors of SDoH. Many of these have been developed for use in scientific studies to assess the various social factors that influence an individual’s health. For those who wish to use the scales, please contact the researchers who developed them.
*Disclaimer* The measures linked here were compiled by the Social Connections Lab but were not created by, or property of, the lab or the UOHI.
Everyday Discrimination Scale
Number of items: 9 + 3 follow-up questions (short-form: 5)
Languages: English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish (short-form: English)
Contact authors for permission & costs
Major Experiences of Discrimination Scale
Number of items: 9 + 2 follow-up questions
Languages: English, German, Portuguese, Spanish
Contact authors for permission & costs
Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire (PEDQ-CV) - Community Version
Number of items: 70 (brief version: 17)
Languages: English, Spanish
Contact authors for permission & costs
The Schedule of Racist Events (SRE)
Number of items: 18
Languages: English, Portuguese
Contact authors for permission & costs
Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (ACE)
Number of items: 10
Languages: English, Arabic, Armenian, Cambodian, Chinese, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese
Free to use with proper citation
Childhood Trauma Questionnaire Short-Form (CTQ-SF)
Number of items: 28 (short-form: 5)
Languages: English, French
License required through Pearson
Family (APGAR (Adaptation, Partnership, Growth, Affection, and Resolve) Index
Number of items: 5
Languages: English, Chinese, Indonesian, Persian, Spanish
Contact authors for permission & costs
McMaster Family Assessment Device
Number of items: 60 (short-form: 12)
Languages: English, Chinese, French, Greek, Malay
Contact authors for permission & costs
Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)
Number of items: 8
Languages: English, Albanian, Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian
Free to use with proper citation
Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS)
Number of items: 9
Languages: English
Contact authors for permission & costs
The Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM)
Number of items: 18 (10 adult scale and 8 children scale) (short-form: 6)
Languages: English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish
Free to use with proper citation
The Housing Instability Scale
Number of items: 7
Languages: English, Spanish
Contact authors for permission & costs
Brief Health Literacy Screener (BHLS)
Number of items: 3
Languages: English, French, Spanish
Contact authors for permission & costs
European Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q47)
Number of items: 47 (short-forms: 16 and 6)
Languages: English, Arabic, Burmese, French, Indonesian, Italian, Kazakh, Malay, Mandarin, Russian, Vietnamese
Contact authors for permission & costs
Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ)
Number of items: 44
Languages: English, Danish, French
License required through Ophelia
Newest Vital Sign (NVS)
Number of items: 6
Languages: English, French, Spanish
License required through IQVIA
Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA)
Number of items: 67 (short-form: 36)
Languages: English, Spanish (short-form: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish)
Contact authors for permission & costs
De Jong Gierveld 6-item Loneliness Scale
Number of items: 11 (short-form: 6)
Languages: English, Chinese, Dutch, French, Japanese, Spanish
Contact authors for permission & costs
UCLA Loneliness Scale
Number of items: 20 (short-form: 3)
Languages: English, Cantonese, Danish, Farsi, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu (short-form: English)
Contact authors for permission & costs
MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis) Neighborhood Scale
Number of items: 36
Languages: English
Contact authors for permission & costs
Neighbourhood Environment and Walking Scale (NEWS)
Number of items: 66 (short-form: 17)
Languages: English, Chinese, Polish, Tamil (short-form: English, Japanese)
Contact authors for permission & costs
The Neighborhood Stress Index
Number of items: 18
Languages: English
Contact authors for permission & costs
Dyadic Adjustment Scale
Number of items: 32
Languages: English, Chinese, French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Turkish
Contact authors for permission & costs
Mutuality Scale of the Family Caregiving Inventory
Number of items: 15
Languages: English
Contact authors for permission & costs
Relationship Assessment Scale
Number of items: 7
Languages: English, French, Polish, Spanish, Swedish
Contact authors for permission & costs
Personal Social Capital Scale
Number of items: 42
Languages: English, Mandarin
Contact authors for permission & costs
Lubben Social Network Scale
Number of items: 12 (short-form: 6)
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Portuguese (short-form: English, Portuguese)
Complete permission request form prior to usage
Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA): Lack of Family Support Subscale
Number of items: 5
Languages: English, Dutch, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Spanish
Contact Michigan State University for permission & costs
Duke-UNC Functional Social Support Questionnaire
Number of items: 14 (short-forms: 8 and 11)
Languages: English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
Contact journal of original publication for permission & costs
Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL)
Number of items: 40 (short-form: 12)
Languages: English, Greek, Polish, Swahili (short-form: English, Spanish)
Contact authors for permission & costs
The Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Scale (MOS-SSS)
Number of items: 19 (short-forms: 8 & 6)
Languages: English, Chinese, Farsi, French, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese (8-item short-form: English, Chinese, Spanish; 6-item short-form: English, Spanish)
Contact authors for permission & costs
Multidimensional Perceived Social Support (MSPSS)
Number of items: 12
Languages: English, Arabic*, Chinese*, Chichewa and Chiyao, Creole*, French*, Hausa, Korean*, Luganda, Malay*, Persian*, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish*, Swedish*, Tamil*, Thai*, Turkish, Urdu*
*Poor validation methodology upon psychometric analyses
Free to use - contact authors for permission
MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status
Number of items: 1
Languages: English
Contact authors for permission & costs