Disparities in health and health care across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States are well documented. The reasons for these disparities are, however, not well understood. Current data available on race, ethnicity, SEP, and accumulation and language use are severely limited. The report examines data collection and reporting systems relating to the collection of data on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic position and offers recommendations.

Many racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, and others, have historically faced severe discriminationâ€"pervasive and open denial of civil, social, political, educational, and economic opportunities. Today, large differences among racial and ethnic groups continue to exist in employment, income and wealth, housing, education, criminal justice, health, and other areas. While many factors may contribute to such differences, their size and extent suggest that various forms of discriminatory treatment persist in U.S. society and serve to undercut the achievement of equal opportunity. Measuring Racial Discrimination considers the definition of race and racial discrimination, reviews the existing techniques used to measure racial discrimination, and identifies new tools and areas for future research. The book conducts a thorough evaluation of current methodologies for a wide range of circumstances in which racial discrimination may occur, and makes recommendations on how to better assess the presence and effects of discrimination.

Racial and ethnic issues stand at the core of social, political, and economic concerns in an increasingly diverse America. Accordingly, how individuals from the various ethnic groups regard themselves—and others—is a salient focus of research studies across the disciplines. Measuring Race and Ethnicity gathers psychological measures of common phenomena such as racial identity, acculturation, and intra- and intergroup relations enabling researchers to compare concepts across groups and better evaluate differences and disparities. Researchers in psychology, social work, and public health examining cultural and race-related topics will find an immediately relevant source of valid and reliable scales in Measuring Race and Ethnicity.

"Understanding the complexity of racial categories is essential for achieving equity and reducing inequality in the United States. The authors show how that by disaggregating data on race, researchers and policymakers can more fully understand how race is factored in educational settings"--

The goal of eliminating disparities in health care in the United States remains elusive. Even as quality improves on specific measures, disparities often persist. Addressing these disparities must begin with the fundamental step of bringing the nature of the disparities and the groups at risk for those disparities to light by collecting health care quality information stratified by race, ethnicity and language data. Then attention can be focused on where interventions might be best applied, and on planning and evaluating those efforts to inform the development of policy and the application of resources. A lack of standardization of categories for race, ethnicity, and language data has been suggested as one obstacle to achieving more widespread collection and utilization of these data. Race, Ethnicity, and Language Data identifies current models for collecting and coding race, ethnicity, and language data; reviews challenges involved in obtaining these data, and makes recommendations for a nationally standardized approach for use in health care quality improvement.

The decennial census was the federal government’s largest and most complex peacetime operation. This report of a panel of the National Research Council’s Committee on National Statistics comprehensively reviews the conduct of the 2000 census and the quality of the resulting data. The panel’s findings cover the planning process for 2000, which was marked by an atmosphere of intense controversy about the proposed role of statistical techniques in the census enumeration and possible adjustment for errors in counting the population. The report addresses the success and problems of major innovations in census operations, the completeness of population coverage in 2000, and the quality of both the basic demographic data collected from all census respondents and the detailed socioeconomic data collected from the census long-form sample (about one-sixth of the population). The panel draws comparisons with the 1990 experience and recommends improvements in the planning process and design for 2010. The 2000 Census: Counting Under Adversity will be an invaluable resource for users of the 2000 data and for policymakers and census planners. It provides a trove of information about the issues that have fueled debate about the census process and about the operations and quality of the nation’s twenty-second decennial enumeration.

In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good-or equally poor-health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.