Health care equity is a key component of health care quality. In the United States, research has documented variations in care and outcomes based on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. But since race and ethnicity information in health care is only available for a very small fraction of the population, far more data must be collected from key health care stakeholders - such as health insurers, and public and private payers - in order to address disparities and prioritze quality improvement efforts.

A new issue brief describes how indirect estimation methods represent a promising short-term strategy for assessing population-level racial/ethnic health care disparities, and addresses some of the important questions and concerns regarding the use of these new methodologies, based on validation activities of RAND's indirect estimation algorithm.

Read the issue brief