Frameworks that guide race and ethnicity data collection practices in health settings: A scoping review.
Abstract
There are disparities in the health outcomes of minority populations compared with those of the majority in Canada. Unfortunately, no detailed and representative population-level data document these disparities except for Indigenous populations. This data gap is partly due to a lack of consensus on race and ethnicity data collection standards in healthcare. This scoping review identified and synthesized evidence from frameworks for collecting patient race and ethnicity information in health settings in the US and Canada.
Twenty-three articles met the inclusion criteria. The results show limited stakeholder engagement for many of the frameworks during the development process, and the data collected using most of these frameworks were not incorporated into electronic records. The frameworks originating in Canada lacked a common reference point for racial and ethnic categories, and many of them do not collect ethnicity information. These findings are crucial considerations for governments and healthcare leaders to successfully collect, manage, aggregate, and use race and ethnicity data to address health inequities in Canada.