STILL MISSING: US racial/ethnic data for COVID-19 cases

COVID-19 virus with question marks layered on top of it

A Harvard Pop Center working paper finds that despite a federal policy that went into effect in early June requiring that racial/ethnic data be reported for all COVID-19 cases, it is still not being adequately reported. Based on publicly available data at the CDC website, close to half of the cases reported between August 28, 2020 and September 16, 2020 are still missing this key information.

“These findings suggest that compliance with regulations to report data on race/ethnicity for US COVID-19 cases is inadequate and continues to hamper understanding of and efforts to mitigate racial/ethnic inequities in COVID-19.”

Authors: Nancy Krieger, PhD, Christian C. Testa, BS, and Jarvis T. Chen, ScD