The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #74201

Edward B. Perrin, PhD, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, 146 N. Canal St., Center for Cost and Outcomes Research, Seattle, WA 98412, 206-616-2982, perrin@u.washington.edu and Michele Ver Ploeg, Committee on National Statistics, The National Academies, 500 5th St., NW, Room 1059, Washington, DC 202-334-1962.

With an abundance of evidence documenting disparities among racial and ethnic groups in access to health care, treatment, outcomes of care, and other aspects of health care, better data on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES) are essential to begin to design strategies to eliminate these disparities. As part of the "Minority Health and Disparities Research Education Act" (106th Congress, 2000), Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct a comprehensive study of race and ethnicity data collection systems and practices in the Department of Health and Human Services. In response, the Committee on National Statistics of the NAS formed an expert panel on DHHS Collection of Race and Ethnicity Data. This panel was charged to review what data are needed to evaluate the effects of socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity on access to health care, health care, and health care outcomes, the effectiveness of the systems and practices in DHHS in collecting and analyzing such data, and to make recommendations for improvements for data collection. The findings and recommendations of the NAS panel report will be presented during this session. The session will discuss the importance of race, ethnicity, and SES data collection. It will also emphasize uses of these data for monitoring disparities, to help plan strategies to eliminate disparities, and to evaluate the performance of these strategies. Race, ethnicity, and SES data Collection by DHHS, by states, and by private sector sources will be reviewed. Gaps in data collection from these three sources, and recommendations for improvements will be discussed. Finally, the barriers and costs to implementing recommendations will be given.

Learning Objectives:

• The learner will be informed of the importance of race, ethnicity and SES data collection.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.