BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 176
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Date of Hearing: May 6, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
176 (Bonta) - As Amended April 14, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
Yes
SUMMARY:
This bill places specified requirements regarding the collection
of demographic data, by the state's public segments of
postsecondary education and by state health-related departments,
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pertaining to tabulation categories of Native Hawaiian (NH),
Asian, and Pacific Islander (API) groups. Specifically, this
bill:
1)Requires the Board of Governors (BOG) of the California
Community Colleges (CCC) and the Trustees of the California
State University (CSU), and requests the Regents of the
University of California (UC), when collecting demographic
data on students for a report that includes student admission,
enrollment, completion, or graduation rates, to use specified
collection and tabulation categories for NH and API groups as
follows:
a) Until the release of the next decennial census, each
entity shall use the categories that the entity used as of
January 1, 2015.
b) Within 18 months after release of the a decennial
census, each entity shall use the NH and API categories as
reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.
2)Requires CCC, CSU, and UC to collect and publish the above
demographic data on their respective websites by July 1, 2016,
to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,
and to observe criteria for ensuring statistical significance
of data collected and published.
3)Requires the Department of Public Health (DPH), Department of
Health Care Services (DHCS), and Department Managed Health
Care (DMHC), when collecting patient demographic data for
reports, on or after July 1, 2016, on level of health care
coverage, amount of health care coverage, rates for major
diseases, leading causes of death per demographic,
subcategories for leading causes of death in California
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overall, pregnancy rates, and housing numbers, to use the
following separate collection categories and tabulations, in
addition to the categories required by existing law:
a) Major Asian groups, including, but not limited to,
Bangladeshi, Hmong, Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sri
Lankan, Taiwanese, and Thai; and,
b) Major Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander groups,
including, but not limited to, Fijian and Tongan.
4)Requires DPH, DHCS, and DMHC to publish the above data on
their website by July 1, 2016, and annually thereafter, and to
update their data collection to reflect include any additional
NH and API groups as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau within
18 months after a decennial census is released to the public.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)UC. The system collects the required data for undergraduate
students, but not for graduate schools and professional
schools, including medical schools. UC would incur one-time
General Fund costs exceeding $250,000 to provide this
capability.
2)CSU. Minor absorbable costs.
3)CCC. Districts currently report on about one-third of the
Census subgroups. Given that the bill would not require
reporting for all subgroups until around 2023, districts
should be able to encompass this change within the course of
updating their current practices, costs should not be
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significant.
4)DMHC. No additional costs, as recently enacted legislation
already will require the department to meet the requirements
of this bill.
5)DPH will be impacted in several areas.
a) Center for Health Statistics and Information. Will
require two positions for two years ($230,000, special
fund) to include all of the sub-groups specified in
demographic reports produced using vital statistics data.
This involves development of new statistical coding of data
to produce the strata specified for the data files, and to
ensure the integrity and quality of the data produced.
Additionally, staff will need to determine if the
disaggregated data produced is statistically reliable and
would also need to ensure that re-identification of
individuals was not possible for confidential data, which
becomes exceedingly complex and time-consuming at the level
of detail proposed in this bill, particularly for data
reported at the county level.
b) Genetic Disease Screening Program. Ongoing cost of
$150,000 cover the annual cost of expanded form sizes for
both newborn screening and prenatal screening (to
accommodate eight additional categories), and for
additional follow-up referrals due to inaccurate
race/ethnicity data. Also one-time information
technology-related costs of $150,000. These costs are
covered by fee-supported special funds.
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c) Office of AIDS. General Fund cost of $125,000 for one
position to coordinate reprogramming of data systems,
production of modified statistical reports, and changes to
regulations.
6)DHCS. Non-responsive.
COMMENTS:
1)Background. According to the California Commission on Asian
and Pacific Islander American Affairs', data disaggregation is
imperative for uncovering economic, educational, and social
disparities inherent not only in API communities, but in all
ethnic populations. The Commission finds that the need to
disaggregate data is often exemplified by the needs of
Southeast Asian American students; often categorized as
"Asian," their "lower academic achievement rates are
overshadowed by the stereotype that all Asian students excel
in academics."
According to information provided by the author's office, many
of the communities within the API population face similar
challenges in California, such as language barriers and
immigration; however, they differ on many issues. This is
most evident with respect to education and public health,
where the outcomes of some of the largest API groups within
the API population raise the average outcome of the greater
API population as a whole.
2)Purpose. According to the author's office, "By relying heavily
on aggregate data of the API community, the state of
California fails to recognize that different API ethnic
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subpopulations have diverse social and economic conditions."
The author contends that if the needs of each of the API
"subgroups" are not addressed properly, California will run
the risk of lower educational outcomes and greater healthcare
costs for our future generations. Data disaggregation is
imperative for uncovering social, economic and educational
disparities within the greater Asian population.
3)Prior Legislation. AB 1088 (Eng)/Chapter 689 of 2011, required
the Department of Industrial Relations and the Department of
Fair Employment and Housing to collect and tabulate data for
additional major Asian groups.
AB 1737 (Eng) of 2010, which would have required certain state
agencies to use additional separate collection categories and
tabulations for major Native Hawaiian and API groups, was held
on this committee's Suspense file.
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081