Collecting Demographic Information for Cancer Patients
Collecting demographic data is important for public health monitoring, cancer research and clinical practice. Patient information about race, ethnicity, birthplace, and primary language is critical because these factors can affect health beliefs, risks, behaviors, and outcomes. Consequently, several California laws require that health care institutions collect this information from their patients.
In addition, collecting patient race, ethnicity, birthplace, and language can help health care organizations identify and address unique patient needs. When collected systematically and used responsibly, this information can help identify and reduce unfair and illegal disparities and improve health care for all patients. It can allow medical facilities to provide culturally competent care, and improve health care quality, all while fulfilling legal and regulatory mandates.
Please use the following resources to answer questions and facilitate demographic data collection.
- Rationale for why medical facilities should collect patient demographic information
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Patient Demographic Questionnaire
Contact: Scarlett Lin Gomez, Ph.D.
Development of materials supported by grant 1R01 HS19963-01 from the National Institutes of Health (David Zingmond, Principal Investigator, UCLA).
