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JNCI Monographs 2005 2005(35):72-74; doi:10.1093/jncimonographs/lgi041
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Brief Report

Race and Ethnicity: Comparing Medical Records to Self-Reports

Carmen N. West, Ann M. Geiger, Sarah M. Greene, Emily L. Harris, In-Lu A. Liu, Mary B. Barton, Joann G. Elmore, Sharon Rolnick, Larissa Nekhlyudov, Andrea Altschuler, Lisa J. Herrinton, Suzanne W. Fletcher, Karen M. Emmons

Affiliations of authors: Research and Evaluation Department, Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, CA (CNW, AMG, I-LAL); Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, WA (SMG); Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland, OR (ELH); Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, MA (MBB, LN, SWF); Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (JGE); HealthPartners Research Foundation, Minneapolis, MN (SR); Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, CA (AA, LJH); Department of Medical Oncology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA (KME)

Correspondence to: Carmen N. West, MS, MHA, USC/Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1441 Eastlake Ave., Room 3429, Los Angeles, CA 90033 (e-mail: carmenwe{at}usc.edu).

Understanding and eliminating health disparities requires accurate data on race/ethnicity. To assess the quality of race/ethnicity data, we compared medical record classifications to self-report of a study of prophylactic mastectomy. A total of 788 women had race/ethnicity from both sources; 69.9% were 55 years of age or older, 38.3% were at least college graduates, and 67.8% were married or living with someone. There were 817 race/thnicity classifications for the 788 women, of which 758 (92.3%) were identical in the medical record and self-report. Sensitivity and positive predictive value were high (86.7%–97.2%) for whites, Asians, and blacks and moderate (64.0% and 68.1%) for Latinas. However, only one of 18 Native Americans was correctly identified in her medical record. Our results indicate that even if the overall accuracy of medical record classifications for race/ethnicity is high, such a finding may obscure substantial inaccuracies in the recording for racial/ethnic minorities, especially Latinas and Native Americans.


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