Changes in Census Forms Present Major Implications for Public Health Data
By April 1, millions of Americans will have returned their census forms to the US Bureau of the Census and in doing so will have made history. For the first time since the US government started counting its constituency in 1790, residents can mark more than one box to identify their race or ethnicity--and they will have more boxes from which to choose. The change should help deter pigeonholing populations, but it also presents problems for public health officials that are just now being discussed in earnest. To help illuminate concerns, experts from HSPH, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and the Boston Public Health Commission are co-sponsoring "Race/Ethnicity and the Year 2000 Census: Implications for Public Health Data" on Tuesday, April 11 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Snyder Auditorium.
More than 20 years ago, the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established a consistent categorization of races throughout federal databases when it created Directive No. 15. In large part, the directive responded to a need for more accurate information about populations so that civil rights laws could be better enforced. In time, though, groups pointed to the categories' shortcomings. Children of racially mixed marriages were forced to choose one identity over another. Varied populations were glommed together in one sweeping category.
"There was some effort to have a multiracial category, but that's not informative if you don't know what factors go into the classification," said Nancy Krieger, associate director, Harvard Center for Society and Health. "The multiracial category does not tell how discrimination may be taking place or where the process of racial and ethnic identification is occurring."
In 1993, the OMB announced that it would review the categories, and the Census 2000 form reflects that review. The categories of Latino and African American, for example, have been added. Native Hawaiian is now distinguished from Hawaiian, and Asian or Pacific Islander is now two categories.
"The new directive recognizes that there are no such things as biologically distinct races," said Krieger. "That's very important because race has been erroneously conceptualized as having intrinsic meaning. What these changes say is that race is a social experience of being identified with or being subjected to the discrimination associated with various groups."
Census data represents a tremendously important source of information for public health officials, who use it to calculate birth and death rates, incidence of diseases and life expectancies of populations. While the Census 2000 form reflects a greater awareness of racial and ethnic issues, it also presents problems for public health officials who must figure out how to reconcile data based on changing descriptions.
"If you do something as fundamental as reclassify a demographic variable that is routinely used in public health analyses," said Krieger, "then you present major implications in terms of calculating the burden of disease in those populations." She asks how one should compare data from the pre-2000 census to the post-2000 census.
"One of the goals of the symposium is to ask federal and state
officials how they plan on dealing with the new approaches," said
Krieger. "They seem to be developing strategies. I look forward to
hearing what they are."
