DataFlash: Revised Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity

Posted by Carolann Curry on March 29th, 2024 Posted in: Blog, Data Science
Tags: data, Data science

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On March 28, the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) published a set of revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Directive No. 15): Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, the first since 1997. This process started in June 2022, with the first convening of the Interagency Technical Working Group of Federal Government career staff who represent programs that collect or use race and ethnicity data. The OMB reviewed 20,000 comments and held almost 100 listening sessions to finalize the revisions. The revised standards presented in the Notice adopt several revisions intended to improve the quality and usefulness of Federal race and ethnicity data.

The Working Group’s final recommendations include several critical revisions that have been thoroughly researched and tested over the last decade. The updated standards released by OMB follow the Working Group’s evidence-based recommendations and make key revisions to questions used to collect information on race and ethnicity, including:

• Using one combined question for race and ethnicity, and encouraging respondents to select as many options as apply to how they identify.
• Adding Middle Eastern or North African as a new minimum category. The new set of minimum race and/or ethnicity categories are:
  • American Indian or Alaska Native
  • Asian
  • Black or African American
  • Hispanic or Latino
  • Middle Eastern or North African
  • Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
  • White
• Requiring the collection of additional detail beyond the minimum required race and ethnicity categories for most situations, to ensure further disaggregation in the collection, tabulation, and presentation of data when useful and appropriate.

The updated standards also include several additional updates to definitions, terminology, and guidance to agencies on the collection and presentation of data.

You can read the updated Directive No. 15 on the Federal Register as well as at www.spd15revision.gov.