Race Code Validity

Multiple Races. Did you know that NSSP Data Quality Reports and ESSENCE Data Quality Dashboards were updated to account for multi-race reporting? This change was made to accommodate instances where the visit record has more than one distinct race code for the patient and multiple race codes are transmitted in a repeating segment.

A message could have race codes for “White,” “African American,” and “Asian”—three different race codes in one visit record. When this happens, the race codes are stored in a single field, separated by semicolons. Previously, a field formatted this way would have been flagged as invalid. Now, multiple valid race codes are not flagged as invalid.

Refused to Answer. The “refused to answer” code (PHC1175) has been added to the list of valid codes. ESSENCE Data Quality Dashboards were updated to account for the additional code and the change will be reflected in the March Data Quality Reports. This is another instance where requests from the community led to improved functionality.