4. Presentation of Data on Race and Ethnicity

Approach 1, alone or in combination

The alone or in combination approach combines all individuals belonging to a particular racial or ethnic group (whether alone or in combination with another racial or ethnic group). For example, a respondent who reported being both White and Black or African American would fall into both the “White alone or in combination” category and the “Black or African American alone or in combination” category. This practice has been in place since the 1997 revision of SPD 15 and is useful if the goal is capturing all people who might face a given life experience (e.g., increased risk of a disease or discrimination). Percentages across the categories sum to greater than 100 percent because the response categories are not mutually exclusive in this approach. The following is an example of the tabulation categories for this approach:

• American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination
• Asian alone or in combination
• Black or African American alone or in combination
• Hispanic or Latino alone or in combination
• Middle Eastern or North African alone or in combination
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone or in combination
• White alone or in combination

Approach 2, most frequent multiple responses

The most frequent multiple responses approach reports as many possible race and ethnicity combinations as possible. For example, an agency could report the seven minimum race and ethnicity categories alone, as well as race and ethnicity combinations meeting a specific population threshold or combinations of particular interest, or all observed combinations of multiple race and ethnicity groups. The percentages will sum to 100 percent because the response categories are mutually exclusive. The following is an example of possible tabulation categories for this approach:

• American Indian or Alaska Native alone
• Asian alone
• Black or African American alone
• Hispanic or Latino alone
• Middle Eastern or North African alone
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone
• White alone

• American Indian or Alaska Native and Hispanic or Latino
• American Indian or Alaska Native and White
• Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
• Asian and White
• Black or African American and Middle Eastern or North African
• Black or African American and White
• Hispanic or Latino and Black or African American
• Hispanic or Latino and White
• Middle Eastern or North African and Asian
• Middle Eastern or North African and White
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and Black or African American
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and White
• All additional Multiracial and/or Multiethnic groups

Approach 3, combined Multiracial and/or Multiethnic

The combined Multiracial and/or Multiethnic approach presents data for those reporting one of the seven race and/or ethnic categories alone, and then combines all other respondents reporting multiple race and/or ethnicity categories into an aggregated Multiracial and/or Multiethnic category. This approach will often obscure the specific racial and ethnic diversity of the population (e.g., over half of the population who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander may be assigned to the Multiracial and/or Multiethnic group). Therefore, Federal agencies should use this approach in conjunction with another approach (like Approaches 1 or 2) to comply with the requirement to report as much information on race and ethnicity as possible, including data for respondents who reported more than one race and/or ethnicity category. The percentages in this approach will sum to 100 percent because the response categories are mutually exclusive. The following illustrates the tabulation categories used for this approach:

• American Indian or Alaska Native alone
• Asian alone
• Black or African American alone
• Hispanic or Latino alone
• Middle Eastern or North African alone
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone
• White alone
• Multiracial and/or Multiethnic

With respect to tabulation and presentation, regardless of approach, the seven minimum race and ethnicity categories shall be treated co-equally except if a program or collection effort focuses on a specific racial or ethnic group, and as approved by OIRA. When tabulating and presenting data, agencies must use a consistent approach across all categories within a single table. If categories must be combined in order to reach sample size thresholds for reporting, those combinations should be labeled with the list of combined categories rather than with “other.”