Over the past decade, little progress has been made in reducing these disparities. According to the Institute of Medicine, inadequate data on race, ethnicity, and language lowers the likelihood of effective actions to address health disparities.

But, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, section 4302 invests in the implementation of a new health data collection and analysis strategy. It requires all national federal data collection efforts to collect data on: race, ethnicity, primary language, disability status, and gender.