Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
For the first time since 1997, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expanded its race and ethnicity standards to capture historically excluded communities who will now be visible in federal data collection.
In the first of three briefings on health inequities sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, experts and advocates will explore how better data collection will help direct resources and interventions where they are needed most, especially to communities facing the greatest health challenges.
EMS briefing on May 17 touched on what the updated race and ethnicity standards include; how OMB plans to engage with communities to ensure clarity and broad adoption; need for additional testing and research to implement the standards; what states are already implementing high standards.
The Office of Management and Budget March 28 released its final updated standards for Federal agencies on maintaining, collecting and presenting data on race and ethnicity. For the first time since 1997, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expanded its ethnic standards to collect accurate race-related information from diverse communities, which will help close health disparities.
Gail C. Christopher, Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity and Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems said RWJF is a leading national philanthropy dedicated to taking bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime through funding, convening, advocacy, and evidence building. She said people need to stop being invisible and counted. We must have systems that count our diverse populations. We recommend that local communities be fully engaged in this work and willing to address the legacy of structural racism that has characterized our nation.
Tina J. Kauh, Senior Program Officer within the Research-Evaluation-Learning Unit of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said it is a historic event that changes are being made to the minimum racial and ethnic data standards, particularly because it addresses gaps in the data.
She revealed that as a researcher, she was motivated to study the topic by the experience of her Korean immigrant parents who came to Philadelphia in the late 1970s, and experienced many challenges working hard as merchants. But when she started her PhD she discovered there were no statistics on Asian Americans, only studies on how well they did academically. She emphasized that structural and systemic racism are causing a lack of data not only for Asian Americans, but other populations as well. She stated that with the changes recently made by OMB, they will have a great opportunity to improve the way racial and ethnic data is collected, analyzed, reported and disseminated to promote health equity.
Meeta Anand, Senior Program Director, Census and Data Equity, at The Leadership Conference Education Fund said that when we have disaggregated data, we are allowing people to tell more of their own personal story and their own lived experience. She said agencies will have 18 months to put together plans that will allow them to implement the new standards, and then five years to execute them.s
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