In the midst of a massive health crisis and a national equity crisis, the infrastructure behind the count that affects how much health-related funding is distributed has been suspended, with no guarantee that counts will approach even the suboptimal previous levels of completeness or accuracy. And, due to chronic underfunding and a recent attempt to add a citizenship question to the census, the 2020 census is at risk for even more severe inaccuracies.
In a perspective published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine Founding Dean and CEO Mark Schuster, student Artem Osherov, and Chair of Health Systems Science Paul Chung, argue that due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s census undercount will likely be worse than in the past, with healthcare implications that could last a decade.
Read the entire article in New England Journal of Medicine .
