Around the world, racial and ethnic disparities are rampant across all sectors of society; from inequities in healthcare, education, and employment to housing, wealth, and criminal justice. Indigenous peoples and racial minorities are also systematically undercounted in censuses. COVID-19 has exacerbated these issues, as people of color, especially Black people, have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, both in terms of cases and deaths. Yet much of the COVID-19 data, including on vaccinations, is still not being disaggregated by race or ethnicity, further hampering governments’ ability to formulate effective policies to respond to the pandemic. With over a year since the first COVID-19 case and the rise of new variants and a resurgence in cases globally, countries must do better to disaggregate their data by race and ethnicity.
Read MoreLast week, more than 7,000 data experts from around the world gathered virtually for the third annual World Data Forum. Increasing investment in statistics, effective communications around data, the importance of disaggregation, emerging data sources, and careful data governance were among the key issues discussed.
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