Honolulu City Council calls for better data collection

The Honolulu City Council is pushing for better data collection from city and state agencies to better understand underserved populations.

The federal government’s minimum data collection standards on race require reporting in only five categories: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White; and two for ethnicity, Hispanic origin or Not of Hispanic origin.

However, the Council unanimously agreed that those standards are too broad, particularly in Hawaii where nearly 50% of the population would fall into the categories Asian and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.

Council member Esther Kiaaina introduced the resolution with Council member Radiant Cordero. Kia­- aina emphasized the need for better data to address issues that became even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“My feeling is that we as a state could do better to help because data is so critically important in addressing a lot of the items that were identified,” she said.

The resolution urges state and city agencies to instead collect data in 15 racial categories: White, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Other Asian, Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Micronesian, Tongan, Chamorro and Other Pacific Islander.

Although Kiaaina said data disaggregation would affect all issues, the need became extremely acute during the pandemic when government relief found it difficult to identify outbreaks among the Pacific Islander community, which was lumped with Native Hawaiians. In turn, it was difficult to disperse needed relief and information to those who needed it.

The resolution lists enforcing civil rights laws, allowing for more accurate research and increasing knowledge of racial and ethic inequities as the main benefits of data disaggregation.

Catherine Chen, an immigration attorney at the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawaii, explained that better data would help steer better policy and quantify what are now just anecdotes from those in need.

“We hear these anecdotes, and so we have a sense that something out there is happening, but there’s no data,” she said.

“What does that mean to the policymakers? I think anecdotes are very powerful, but I also think that people are looking for data when you’re making decisions.”

Liza Ryan-Gill, chairwoman of the The Legal Clinic’s Advocacy Committee, explained that once the city was able to disaggregate the data that showed Filipino and Micronesian communities were being hardest-hit by COVID-19, it was able to deliver better resources.

“We were able to work with interpreters and public health officials, make sure that public health data and appropriate information was translated into the appropriate language, target the right ZIP codes,” she said.

“Without disaggregation you know none of that.”

However, Ryan-Gill emphasized the need to contextualize disaggregated data to avoid stigmatizing particular racial groups.

“We need to be very careful, and looking at the context of why,” she said.

“Especially when it has a relationship to health and/or would have an impact on the greater society.”

Dina Shek, legal director at the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawaii, explained that officials need to be properly trained on how to present information.

“They need to take a system-level approach and ask, Why is this happening? What are people not able to access? That makes them more susceptible and vulnerable,” she said.

Data disaggregation is also important to understand what populations are able to access relief efforts. In particular, advocates are hoping to see data reporting on the city’s Rent and Utility Relief Program.

In a statement, the Office of Economic Revitalization, which administers the federally funded relief program, said the city follows federal guidelines in collecting demographic information for households that have completed an application. The racial categories being collected are the federal standard five, not the disaggre- gated data. The department did not immediately respond to questions on whether it would disaggregate data following passage of the resolution. The city will submit its report to the federal government in mid-July and will make it publicly available after it is accepted.

Resolutions are nonbinding, which means the measure will not force the city to disaggregate the data.

However, the city Department of Human Resources has completed an assessment on whether its system can maintain the additional disaggregated data. A spokesperson from the city estimated that the modifications and testing would take several months and would then be implemented.

Kiaaina said she does not anticipate needing to mandate data disaggregation, but would consider it if the need presented itself.

“Whatever data is required, there is no reason that a single county or state agency should not be able to do this,” she said.

“This was a resolution to try to encourage governmental. There is absolutely no reason why private industry — hospitals, for example, data for hospitals — can’t automatically do this. Why? Because it conforms to the federal minimum guidelines, it just goes further.”