TABLE 3—

Policy Gaps Between Demographic Data Requirements Proposed and Adopted in the Meaningful Use Program and Those Used in Public Health Surveys

Demographic Data Category	Possible Evidence-Based Standards (Explicitly Acknowledged in Final Rules)	No. of Categories	Proposed in MU	Adopted in MU	Used in Public Health Surveys
Race	OMB	5	X	X	X
	DHHS	14a	X		X
	CDC	> 500a	X		X
	IOM	Locally relevant choicesa	X		NA
Ethnicity	OMB	2	X	X	X
	DHHS	5a	X		X
	CDC	> 30a	X		X
	IOM	Locally relevant choices	X		NA
Preferred language	ISO 639-1	> 200	X	Xb	X
	ISO 639-2	> 500	X	Xb	X
	ISO 639-3	Approximately 6000	X		X
	Tags for Identifying Languages, September 2009	Develops unique identifiers for languages included in ISO 639 registry	X	NA	NA
Sex		2	X	X	X
Disability or functional status	American Community Survey	6	X		X
Sexual orientation	HL7	8	X		X
Gender identity	HL7	8	X

Note. CDC = Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; DHHS = Department of Health and Human Services; HL7 = Health Level Seven International; IOM = Institute of Medicine; ISO = International Organization for Standardization; MU = the Meaningful Use program; NA = not applicable; OMB = Office of Management and Budget.

^aAll subcategories roll up to OMB categories.

^bISO 639-2 alpha-3 codes limited to those that also have a corresponding alpha-2 code in ISO 639-1.