Introduction

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) presents the Asian and Pacific Islander Data Disaggregation Highlights (pdf), a collection of fact sheets that highlight various health indicators among different Asian and Pacific Islander groups.

This collection of fact sheets is provided as part of the  implementation of Assembly Bill (AB) 1726 (Bonta, Chapter 607, Statutes of 2016), which required CDPH, on or after July 1, 2022, whenever collecting demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of persons for a report that includes rates for major diseases, leading causes of death per demographic, subcategories for leading causes of death in California overall, pregnancy rates, or housing numbers, to collect data as specified in Section 8310.7 Subdivision (b) of the Government Code:

1. Additional major Asian groups, including, but not limited to, Bangladeshi, Hmong, Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, and Thai.
2. Additional major Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander groups, including, but not limited to, Fijian and Tongan.

The development of these fact sheets serves not only to bridge the gap between the implementation of AB 1726 (2016) to when the specified data will be published, but also to highlight health disparities and bring forth data limitations CDPH can begin to consider.

As the data required to be collected on or after July 1, 2022 becomes available, CDPH will publish additional information regarding the type of data and how to locate it using the Data Availability reference table below.  

Data Limitations

Denominator Data

Subgroup population denominator data may not be available for calculation of rates. In other words, CDPH does not have an accurate tally of the total population of various Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander subgroups. Thus, when a response such as the number of Bangladeshi affected by a certain condition is received, CDPH is not able to tell if that is a high or low percentage for the population compared to other population rates since the number of the total population of Bangladeshi is unknown at this time. CDPH is currently researching denominator options to accurately calculate rates.

Data Sources

AB 1726 exempts "demographic data collected by other entities" including federal entities, state entities not covered by AB 1726, and third-party entities. As a result, CDPH may not be able to display disaggregated data to the level specified by AB 1726 if the source data (e.g., electronic health records) does not have this data or it is of poor quality. Nevertheless, CDPH will strive to produce more comprehensive data reports by also incorporating non-CDPH data sources when relevant and possible that identify health inequities within Asian and Pacific Islander populations, such as the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS).

In addition, there are differences in collection of race/ethnicity information for deaths (e.g., family or physician informant) versus population data (e.g., self-reported via a survey), which likely will contribute to some numerator/denominator misalignment.

Moreover, poverty, educational attainment, and unemployment data are based on different types of population samples and are subject to margin of error.

Implementation Date

The implementation of AB 1726 (2016) is occurring in the middle of the calendar year (July 1, 2022), so there will not be a complete year of vital statistics data using the new collection methods until the 2023 data is finalized in fall 2024. Preliminary data may be available sooner.

Data Availability – Reference Table