Sacramento, CA – Senator Richard Pan introduced Senate Bill 1033, a demographic data equity proposal, to strengthen state data collection and reporting standards in order to advance health equity.
Despite enacting landmark data collection and language access law over two decades ago, California still has an incomplete picture of health care consumers’ cultural and linguistic needs and preferences, and little information regarding the community conditions that shape health outcomes. Throughout the pandemic, health systems struggled to account for the unequal tool of COVID cases and to deploy appropriate strategies to reach historically excluded communities with life-saving vaccines.
SB 1033 will bring California’s demographic data collection practices into alignment with our diverse state population and will ensure that every Californian’s unique needs can be considered. Senate Bill 1033 will ensure the state has a standard, consistent method for data collection, and will require health plans to identify and use best practices for reporting data and disparities, convene stakeholders who will establish data collection and reporting standards, and provide technical assistance to health plans.
“All Californians deserve health care that is responsive to their unique needs and effective at maintaining their wellness. Currently, many health systems use a one-size-fits-all approach, discounting the impact of race, language, and community conditions on health. We must do better at understanding and addressing the health care needs of Californians,” said Kiran Savage-Sangwan, Executive Director of CPEHN. “SB 1033 will modernize how we collect important data about individuals and ensure that we use that data to advance health equity.”
“As a pediatrician, I know the importance of understanding the identities of my patients and how living conditions impact their health. As a legislator, I have observed the paucity of demographic data that is available to us to make decisions about health care. And as an Asian American, I have experienced being erased by data collection practices that don’t embrace the full diversity of my community. Data is more than numbers. It is the story of who we are and where we need change” said Senator Pan, author of SB 1033. “SB 1033 will ensure data collected from people is used to help them.”
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