Asian and Pacific Islander Subpopulations: Methods to Improve Information on Their Health Care Quality

Information about the health characteristics of Asians and Pacific Islanders are typically reported in aggregate due to the inability of data sources to support analysis on subpopulations. Why? At least three reasons: (1) Data are not collected or collected data do not distinguish subpopulations. (2) The sample size is too small. (3) The numerator data do not match denominator data needed to produce rates. Previous efforts to address some of these challenges using oversampling techniques or surname analysis have had limited success. This study used 2005 and 2006 state-level hospital discharge data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)—the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Hawaii State Inpatient Databases (SID) (developed from data provided by Hawaii Health Information Corporation)—and 2005 and 2006 state-level population data from the Department of Health's Hawaii Health Surveillance (HHS) program. Quality indicators for six subpopulations of Asian and Pacific Islanders—Hawaiians, Other Pacific Islanders, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Other Asian—were generated by applying the AHRQ Prevention Quality Indicators, version 3.1, to these data. The methods result in valuable information about the health care of Asian and Pacific Islander subpopulations not otherwise available and indicate wide variation in access to high quality care across these groups. The methods support trend analyses and development of rates at the community level. Essential to this approach is coordination in data collection for race/ethnicity categories about hospital discharges and state population.