While policy makers and researchers have long bemoaned a dearth of good data directly relevant to the U.S. Virgin Islands, the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Health and Human Services recently expanded and improved data collection in two important areas.
The Census Bureau has expanded its county business patterns information-gathering to include economic statistics for the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands—something Delegate Donna Christensen said she asked them to do during hearings in 2008.
“The Department of Commerce and other federal agencies are doing more to include the insular areas in statistics that are necessary for planning and for the proper allocation of funding,” Christensen said in a statement. Christensen said she asked the Census to include the four small territories in more statistical surveys during hearings in 2008.
The census’ county business patterns statistics provide the only detailed annual information on the number of establishments, employees, and first-quarter and annual payroll for most of the 1,100 industries covered at the national, state and county levels, according to Christensen’s office.
The Census Bureau issued its business pattern report for the territory Thursday. The report, which covered 2009 statistics, showed there were 2,845 V.I. businesses with $1 billion total annual payroll. The complete report shows the entire United States lost 168,000 businesses and more than 6 million employees between 2008 and 2009.
The data can be accessed at http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp.
Meanwhile, on June 29 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new draft standards to improve the monitoring of health data by race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status, and begins planning for the collection of gender health data.
"These standards — while still in draft form — will very likely serve as the backbone in all efforts to measure and better address health disparities in the post-health care reform era," Christensen said in a statement applauding HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for increasing the level of detail in the data.
The new draft standards for collecting and reporting data on race, ethnicity, sex, primary language and disability status are among the key priorities that the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus and Asian Pacific American Caucus adopted in partnership with one another as health care reform was being debated in Washington, according to Christensen.
The goal of getting this data is to help researchers, policy makers, health providers and advocates to identify and address health disparities afflicting marginalized and underserved communities in the United States and its territories, according to Christensen.
“All health disparities — those along the lines of race and ethnicity, gender, disability status, language preference and sexual orientation — have been a persistent, unjust and costly challenge not only to health disparity populations, but to the nation as a whole," said Christensen.
These draft standards "set the nation on a long-overdue path forward toward ensuring the collection of useful national data … to accurately measure the problem of, and develop solutions to the health disparities that leave millions of hardworking Americans without adequate access to quality health care, in poorer health and disproportionately at greater risk for premature death during their most productive life years," she said.
"The reality is that this data will ensure that our federal investments in health disparity elimination are based on evidence of need and are directed to efforts that will move the health equity bar further upstream," said Christensen.
