Making the “Use” Case for Disaggregated Data

Launching AANHPI Community Spotlights with nearly a dozen partner organizations

By AAPI Data

The Decades-Long Journey for Detailed Data

For decades, community leaders serving Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have advocated for detailed data segmented by ethnicity—disaggregated data. In March 2024, the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced revisions to Statistical Policy Directive No. 15: Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity (SPD 15). This historic policy amendment mandates federal agencies to collect disaggregated data in all forms, surveys, and censuses no later than March 2029.

For the first time, all federal agencies will be required to include detailed racial and ethnic categories—such as Cambodian, Samoan, Lebanese, and Mexican—in the forms and surveys used to collect data and the reports and databases they make available to the public. This revision to SPD-15 is a momentous development that acknowledges the growing diversity and complexity of racial and ethnic identity in the United States. It is an important start, but much remains to be done. Federal agencies, as well as state and local agencies, must expend the significant effort, resources, and political will to implement and enforce these new standards.

In July 2024, the Data Equity Working Group of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) launched a Data Use Campaign to demonstrate the critical need for data disaggregation. AAPI Data spearheaded the campaign in partnership with Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC), Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), and Asian Americans Advancing Justice — AAJC. Informed by conversations with the U.S. Chief Statistician, the Data Use Campaign aims to document the concrete implications of failure to act on and enforce the 2024 SPD-15 revisions. Detailed ethnicity-level data serves as a foundational component for the allocation of resources and the improvement policy and programs to respond to population-specific needs.

AANHPI Community Spotlights: Using Data for Change

Our newly launched resource page, Empowered Data, is a collection of community data spotlights that describe ways in which nonprofit organizations and researchers have either gained important insight from detailed ethnicity-specific demographic data or encountered obstacles due to its absence. Each spotlight is designed to stand alone for ease of use in diversity of settings and conversations.

Ten of the 60 submissions from the Data Use Campaign appear in this resource:

  1. Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence (API-GBV) (gender, violence, mental health, poverty)
  2. Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF) — Education (K-12 schools, disability, English language learners)
  3. Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF) — Indo-Caribbean populations (housing, redistricting)
  4. Lavender Phoenix (gender, sexual orientation, violence)
  5. New Breath Foundation (criminal justice, immigration)
  6. School Policy, Action, and Research Center (SPARC) at the University of California, Davis (education, violence)
  7. SCIMA (Native Hawaiians, out-migration)
  8. Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) (Sikh, race and faith, hate crime)
  9. Umeed-Hope Inc. (family violence)
  10. UCLA Labor Center (employment, safety, poverty)

Together, these community data spotlights illustrate the need for detailed community-specific data in a diversity of geographies, issue areas, and settings—direct services, advocacy, research, and philanthropy. Key insights from the spotlights include:

  • Data is power, and without it, community struggles will remain invisible, unaddressed and unresolved. Data is a key ingredient in garnering resources and accruing political will.

  • Cultural and historical context inform the need for detailed data and who will be most affected by the lack of data.

  • Disaggregation of administrative data is critical, including key statistics on education, employment, immigration, health, and crime that serve as the basis of policies and decision-making.

  • Disaggregation by ethnicity is one of many factors that influence the outcomes and experiences of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The intersections with gender, socioeconomic status, and religious affiliation are also important considerations.

Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders encounter systemic barriers that limit access to the resources and services they need. The nonprofit organizations serving these populations cannot make a compelling case about the severity and persistence of their struggles without the data they need. Many small and under-resourced organizations must collect their own data to demonstrate the existence of their struggles.

The implementation and enforcement of the 2024 SPD-15 revisions constitute a significant step forward in understanding pervasive disparities and ensuring data-driven decision-making in public policy