Validity of Racial/Ethnic Classifications in Medical Records Data: An Exploratory Study

Information on “race” and “ethnicity” is routinely collected in medical settings and used in research. Yet little is known about how patients are assigned to categories1–6 or the validity of the racial/ethnic data in medical charts and clinical databases.7 We conducted an exploratory study with 2 goals: to learn how racial/ethnic data were collected at 2 primary care clinics affiliated with Montefiore Medical Center, a large urban hospital in New York City, and to assess the accuracy of these data, with self-report as the standard.