The Racial Data Gap: Lack of Racial Data as a Barrier to Overcoming Structural Racism

Figures & data

Table 1. Selective erasure in CDC mortality data, 1999–2011.

	Black	Hispanic or Latino	Black, Hispanic, or Latino
Census records	22,542	13,487	455
Death certificates	22,384	12,894	312
Ceiling sensitivity	99.30%	95.60%	68.57%
Exact sensitivity	97.2%	88.4%	Unknown

Ceiling sensitivity represents total death certificates as a percentage of total Census records in the matched sample (i.e., maximum possible accuracy assuming 100% specificity). Exact sensitivity expresses percent of decedents whose death certificates match their own Census records for race/ethnicity (i.e., measured actual accuracy).