The MDHHS Office of Equity and Minority Health will hold a series of online community conversations in the hopes of gathering feedback from residents regarding standards of how race and ethnicity data is collected throughout the state of Michigan. Jasmine Hall, epidemiologist coordinator with the office explains why.
“We are hosting these conversations because there’s no standard way right now for MDHHS to collect race and ethnicity data for residents receiving services.”
The Office of Equity and Minority Health says that these online forums will help ensure that data collected in the future will give a fair and inclusive view of all residents who use or may need to use MDHHS programs. Head of the OEMH Brenda Jegede explains other ways the feedback will be used:
“The feedback will help us to make sure we’re in alignment with our federal reporting requirements and also we want to make sure we’re reflecting the diversity that we have within the state of Michigan.”
This evening’s forum will seek input from Asian, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. You can sign up for any of the online forums at Michigan.gov/MinorityHealth.