Abstract

Reporting of race and ethnicity in the Vaccine Safety Datalink, 2011-2021

Kate Kurlandsky, BA¹, Simon J. Hambidge, MD PhD¹, Eric Weintraub, MPH², Joshua T.B. Williams, MD¹ (1)Denver Health, (2)Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo

Background: There are implications to the reporting of race and ethnicity in national vaccine safety studies. Robust reporting clarifies the representativeness of the research and could facilitate the detection of disparities in adverse events. When adverse events are not detected, robust reporting may promote vaccine confidence in diverse communities. Our objective was to describe the reporting of race and ethnicity in Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) publications over the last decade.

Methods: The VSD is a collaboration between the CDC and nine health care organizations covering 12 million persons. Organizations contribute electronic health record data, including self-reported race and ethnicity, toward large studies of vaccine safety and uptake. We reviewed internal VSD records and public-facing websites to identify published studies from 2011-21. We categorized publications by year and reporting methodology, comparing study categories to 1997 Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards.

Results: We identified 202 articles; 195 used VSD data. Of these 195 studies, 138 (71%) did not report race or ethnicity. Of the 57 (29%) studies reporting race or ethnicity, 24 (42%) used 6 categories: Asian, African American or Black, Hispanic, Other, White, Unknown. Three (5%) reported data using 1997 OMB categories. Reporting increased over time, with 80% of studies using some measure of race and ethnicity in 2021.

Conclusions: Race and ethnicity were infrequently and inconsistently reported in VSD studies published from 2011-21, although reporting increased over time. Future efforts should standardize and encourage reporting of race and ethnicity data in national vaccine safety studies.