Why Some States Won’t Share Race and Ethnicity Data on Vaccinations with the CDC—and Why That’s a Problem
We sent requests for data-use agreements to 56 states and territories to learn what vaccination data was being shared with the federal government. We found that several states—including California and Texas—aren’t sharing race and ethnicity data on vaccinations with the CDC, citing patient privacy laws. In better news, most states are.
State-Level Vaccine Demographic Data is Messy and Incomplete—We Need Federal Data, Now
Only a third of states and territories with public vaccine data share information on the race and ethnicity of vaccine recipients, and those that do share it do so in highly unstandardized ways. But data from the federal government could answer the question of who’s getting vaccinated.
Vaccine Distribution Data in Long-Term-Care Facilities Needs to Be Public
For the last month, the public has had minimal visibility into the roll out of COVID-19 vaccines to long-term-care facilities. Last week, South Carolina published the names of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities where residents and staff have been vaccinated. States—and the CDC—should follow suit.
How We Hope Vaccines Will Be Tracked
The federal government seems poised to provide high-quality data on vaccinations, but even a minimal dataset must answer key questions about who is getting vaccinated.
