BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 176 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 6, 2015 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Jimmy Gomez, Chair AB 176 (Bonta) - As Amended April 14, 2015 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Higher Education |Vote:|12 - 1 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | |Health | |18 - 0 | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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, AB 176 Page 2 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 AB 176 Page 3 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 AB 176 Page 4 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. AB 176 Page 5 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 AB 176 Page 6 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