Submitted by Janice on
combined race and ethnicity
OMB recently finalized a proposal made about a year ago that combines race and ethnicity into a single concept, adds Middle Eastern and North African as a new major category, and offers the option to provide a more detailed ethnicity than currently captured among other changes. By the time USCDI v5 is likely to be used in regulation those changes will be several years along and likely starting to be absorbed/used in the real world. We suggest ONC consider whether it makes sense to adopt those changes in USCDI v5 or, if not, to at least consider a plan for how it will move to support those changes in the future.
Submitted by rmcclure on
Combine race and ethnicity data elements
OMB has published updated regulations to combine Race and Ethnicity into one question. In doing so they elevate the existing Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) concept as a "top level" reporting category, but they also remove the distinction between "race" and "ethnicity" while allowing for the collection of prior top-level categories from both. I strongly encourage ONC to align with this intent and combine race and ethnicity into one data element. Note that existing models and data are easily aligned with this proposed improvement.