Abstract
Public health surveillance is the cornerstone of public health practice. The uses of surveillance include the identification of patterns of health among population subgroups. The assessment of race and ethnicity in public health surveillance is fundamental to the reduction of preventable excesses in poor health among racial and ethnic populations. We review the use of race and ethnic variables in national public health surveillance systems in the United States. One barrier to the use of race and ethnicity in public health surveillance is the lack of scientific consensus on the nature of race and ethnicity and the measurement of these variables. Differences in terminology, data collection procedures, perceptions of group identity, and changing demographics of the U.S. population present particular challenges for surveillance. We propose criteria for any useful variables collected through surveillance. Application of these criteria to race and ethnicity suggests that race as assessed in surveillance is not primarily associated with biological characteristics, but it is more like ethnicity--a matter of self-perceived membership in population groups. Regular evaluation of surveillance systems will contribute to the usefulness of information on race and ethnicity in the improvement of the health of minority populations.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Buehler J. W., Stroup D. F., Klaucke D. N., Berkelman R. L. The reporting of race and ethnicity in the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System. Public Health Rep. 1989 Sep-Oct;104(5):457–465. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Frost F., Taylor V., Fries E. Racial misclassification of Native Americans in a surveillance, epidemiology, and end results cancer registry. J Natl Cancer Inst. 1992 Jun 17;84(12):957–962. doi: 10.1093/jnci/84.12.957. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Hahn R. A., Mulinare J., Teutsch S. M. Inconsistencies in coding of race and ethnicity between birth and death in US infants. A new look at infant mortality, 1983 through 1985. JAMA. 1992 Jan 8;267(2):259–263. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Hahn R. A. The state of federal health statistics on racial and ethnic groups. JAMA. 1992 Jan 8;267(2):268–271. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Jones T. S., Liang A. P., Kilbourne E. M., Griffin M. R., Patriarca P. A., Wassilak S. G., Mullan R. J., Herrick R. F., Donnell H. D., Jr, Choi K. Morbidity and mortality associated with the July 1980 heat wave in St Louis and Kansas City, Mo. JAMA. 1982 Jun 25;247(24):3327–3331. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Thacker S. B., Berkelman R. L., Stroup D. F. The science of public health surveillance. J Public Health Policy. 1989 Summer;10(2):187–203. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Treviño F. M. Standardized terminology for hispanic populations. Am J Public Health. 1987 Jan;77(1):69–72. doi: 10.2105/ajph.77.1.69. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]