Highlights:
- Filling gaps in race and ethnicity data will help support and promote health equity, according to a commentary written by Anne-Marie J. Audet, MD, senior medical officer at United Hospital Fund (UHF). With the emergence of COVID-19, existing racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare have been exacerbated. Audet noted that as of November 10, 2020, the age-adjusted mortality from COVID-19 among black Americans as three times higher than that of white Americans.
- Among the challenges that persist are gaps in data collection, risk-adjustment complexities, continued reliance on process over outcome measures, limited use of standardized measures, and inadequacies in quality measures. These challenges have only become starker in light of the current pandemic. While population-level data about COVID-19 infections were reported to the CDC from 1,802,416 people, Audet noted that data on race and ethnicity were available for only 866,693 people (48.1 percent). Additionally, data on emergency department visits did not include information about race.
- EHR data also contains gaps in critical patient information, Audet said. In a recent analysis of outcomes of patients who tested positive for COVID-19, race and ethnicity data were available for only 40 percent of the 16,957 people who tested positive for the virus. To respond to gaps in health data, government agencies have developed new standards and methods of data collection. The Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Minority Health at the US Department of Health and Human Services recently defined standards for gathering race and ethnicity data, Audet said.
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