Advancing Federal Race, Ethnicity, Primary Language, and Disability (RELD) Data

October 10, 2021

Dashni Sathasivam

Health Equity Solutions recently sent a letter to Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith and members of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force outlining recommendations for federal guidance and regulations to tackle existing barriers to race, ethnicity, primary language, and (REL) data collection.

We recommend the following:

  • Expand the discussion of disaggregated REL data collection to all federal agencies collecting REL data.
  • Embed flexibility for states to tailor data collection standards to their specific demographic composition.
  • Recognize individuals with multiple racial and/or ethnic identities within data collection questions.
  • Disaggregate all racial and/or ethnic categories.

You can read the full letter here.