Using race and ethnicity data to advance health equity: examples, promising practices, remaining challenges, and next steps
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- James, Cara V., author Haley, Jennifer M., author Allen, Eva H., author Nelson, Taylor, author
- Contributor(s):
- Health Policy Center (Urban Institute), issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : Urban Institute, October 2023
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Data Collection Ethnic and Racial Minorities Health Equity Health Policy Health Services Accessibility Healthcare Disparities Social Determinants of Health United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- There is widespread agreement that monitoring patients’ health care access and quality by demographic categories such as race and ethnicity and using such data to develop effective interventions is essential to advancing health equity. Major efforts are underway in various sectors of the health care system to improve the completeness of individuals’ self-reported race and ethnicity data. But little is known about the extent to which patient race and ethnicity data are being used to address inequities or about efforts to collect the race and ethnicity data of health care providers, which would also be informative in promoting health equity. Many stakeholders may remain skeptical about whether the potential benefits of complete and accurate data are worth the investments needed to improve data collection infrastructure and practices and build analytic capacity. The landmark 2003 report, Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare, revealed shocking racial and ethnic disparities in access to and quality of health care. Among other findings, the study noted that the lack of standardized and systemwide collection of data on patient and health care provider (provider) race and ethnicity was one of the key barriers to understanding and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Fast-forwarding to 2023, we find that many barriers to systematic race and ethnicity data collection identified in the Unequal Treatment report persist. Despite broad interest in reducing health inequities, many data collection efforts are still developing, and evidence of the use of data to advance health equity remains limited. Even many states, health plans, and health systems at the forefront of this effort lack complete, reliable, high-quality data on patients (let alone on providers) and are seeing limited reductions in health care disparities based on the use of such data to develop and implement health equity interventions.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (26 pages))
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918734183506676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918734183506676