The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Member originally financed this compendium in order to identify assessment tools that are appropriate for evaluating the Strong Families (“Familias Fuertes”) program. The intense support and interest of clinicians and researchers led them to expand the manual to include additional scales relevant to the area of family and adolescence.

This compendium summarizes more than 50 scales that have been evaluated in different countries of Latin America or in the United States for use with Latina/o/x/e families. It is important, therefore, that researchers adapt the language to local usage. Moreover, given the diversity of cultures in Latin America, it is important to examine the relevance of the constructs, and of the items that measure these constructs, in terms of their relationship to the local context.