Objectives: The purpose of the present article is to elucidate the opportunities provided by Rasch modelling in epidemiology and public health research in order to evaluate composite measures of health.
Methods: The article gives a review of Rasch modelling in conjunction with illustrative examples based on adolescent survey data.
Results: The article demonstrates how the Rasch-model enables examinations of the way items work across different samples/subgroups, e.g., detection of possible differential item functioning.
Conclusions: It is concluded that Rasch modelling may serve as a useful tool in the evaluation and the development of composite health measures intended to be used in epidemiology and public health research.