Apropos of several of my recent posts, The New York Times has an interesting article up, Counting by Race Can Throw Off Some Numbers. Basically it outlines the difficulty of enumerating different racial and ethnic groups for different purposes in a more diverse and racially mixed USA. Numbers matter when it comes to apportioning resources, and the current methods are often quite coarse (though some interest groups prefer it that way, because it bolsters their numbers). Let’s focus on the point germane to the focus of this weblog:
The National Center for Health Statistics collects vital statistics from the states to document the health of the population. When it comes to collecting birth certificate information, though, the center encounters a problem: 38 states and the District of Columbia report race data in the new and more expansive manner that allows for the recording of more than one race. But a dozen states do not, because they still use old data systems and outdated forms. As a result, the center cannot produce consistent national data for what it calls “medical and health purposes only.”
To get around that problem, the center reclassifies mixed-race births using a complex algorithm. For example, a birth …