Blog: Advancing Data Equity for U.S. Territories
Millions of people living in the U.S. territories—including American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—are often excluded from federal statistical data collection. This contributes to a significant racial justice issue. Without comprehensive data, policymakers and researchers cannot fully understand the socio-economic challenges faced by all U.S. residents, including people living in the territories, who are disproportionately people of color. This blog—originally published by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—highlights the disparities in data collection between the U.S. territories and the rest of the U.S., the need for collecting high-quality data in U.S. territories, and the negative implications of analyzing an incomplete portrait of the nation.