Introducing a new state “Report Card” & The First New Report Card: Results from April 2021
By Mimi Tarrant
This post is the third in a three-part series. Links to the first two are below:
Blog 3: Introducing a new state “Report Card” and The First New Report Card: Results from April 2021
Introducing a new state “Report Card”
As the US moves into the next stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that our Report Card must adapt to reflect the new data variables being collected and reported. As discussed in the previous two blog posts, there are no longer large changes in state reporting, with most states now reporting the majority of variables, but few reporting interactions between these variables.
With this in mind, the GenderSci Lab decided that future Report Cards will focus on the availability of state-level data for performing intersectional gender/sex analyses. Going forward, we will track state reporting of gender/sex interactions for three outcome variables (age, race/ethnicity, and comorbidities), plus nonbinary gender. This format will allow us to track emerging interaction data useful to gender/sex researchers and will allow us to focus attention more closely on the lack of gender/sex related interactional data in our “grading” of states.
The new Report Card will track reporting practices at the state level for fatalities, hospitalizations, and vaccinations. We will no longer track cases. For each of these three outcomes, five variables will be tracked: gender/sex, non-binary, gender/sex and comorbidity interactions, gender/sex and race/ethnicity interactions, andgender/sex and age interactions. Thus, a state could score a total of 15 points. For a state to be reporting non-binary data for each COVID-19 outcome, gender/sex reporting must include data for trans or nonbinary gender/sex identities explicitly, or data labelled as “Other” (as opposed to being labelled “unknown”). Additionally, data must have been updated/dated within 30 days of the date of collection to be counted as present in our Report Card. Similar to our previous Report Card, a 1 indicates the presence of a variable, and a 0 indicates that the relevant variables could not be identified. We also maintained our previous validation system of conducting separate collections for each state, and identifying any discrepancies in collections to validate the data.
The First New Report Card: April 2021
As expected from our previous tracking, we found that a lot of the data was not available. The average number of points scored, out of 15, was just 2.76, meaning that on average states are reporting fewer than 3 of the variables that our new Report Card tracks. However, there is significant variation in the number of points scored by each state, as shown visually through Figure 1: Utah, Minnesota and Rhode Island each report 6 of the tracked variables, whereas Arkansas fails to report any of the variables.
Our new Report Card found a total of 48 states reporting gender/sex for fatalities, with 17 reporting gender/sex for hospitalizations and 38 reporting the gender/sex of individuals receiving vaccinations. In contrast, only 6 states reported information informative of non-binary or trans individuals for fatalities, while only 3 reported that for hospitalizations. Interestingly, a total of 10 states reported non-binary or trans data for vaccinations. Of these states, 8 report non-binary data for vaccinations but not fatalities; this more inclusive data reporting in vaccination data demonstrates that states do have the capacity to improve reporting practices.
There is a clear dearth of data on the interactional variables that our new Report Card investigates. For fatalities, only 4 states reported on the interaction between gender/sex and race/ethnicity and only 4 states also reported on gender/sex and age. New Hampshire and Georgia reported both of these interactions for fatalities. Only 1 state, Georgia, reported on the interaction between gender/sex and comorbidities for fatalities.
For hospitalizations, only Tennessee reports on the interaction between gender/sex and race/ethnicity. Utah and Florida are the only two states to report on gender/sex and age. No states report the interaction between gender/sex and comorbidities for hospitalizations.
For vaccinations, only South Carolina and Michigan report on the interaction between gender/sex and race/ethnicity. A total of 5 states (Arizona, Michigan, South Carolina, Texas and Utah) report the interaction between gender/sex and age for those receiving vaccines. No states report the interaction between gender/sex and comorbidities for vaccinations.
From this analysis, it is clear that there is little uniformity in whether a state reports interactions between socially relevant variables for either fatalities, hospitalizations or vaccinations. The analysis makes clear that there is an extreme lack of data on the interaction between gender/sex and other socially relevant variables across various outcomes for COVID-19.
Highlights:
Our new Report Card tracks whether states are reporting gender/sex disaggregated data, non-binary data, and interactional data between gender/sex variables and other socially relevant variables across three COVID-19 outcomes: fatalities, hospitalizations and vaccinations.
The average number of points (out of 15) scored across the 50 states and Washington DC was 2.76, meaning that on average states are reporting fewer than 3 of the tracked variables.
Utah, Minnesota and Rhode Island were the highest-scoring states, with each reporting 6 of the tracked variables.
Arkansas was the lowest-scoring state by not reporting any of the tracked variables across the three outcomes investigated.
There is an extreme lack of interactional data available for the study of gender/sex and COVID-19 outcomes.
Figure 1: Visual representation of points scored by state
Figure 2: Points scored by each state
Recommended Citation
Tarrant, M. “Introducing a new state “Report Card” & The First New Report Card: Results from April 2021.” GenderSci Blog. 2021 June 21, genderscilab.org/blog/new-state-report-card-results-from-april-2021
Statement of Intellectual Labor
Tarrant drafted the initial blog post, led the writing process and contributed to data collection and validation. Capri D’Souza and Kai Jillson collected and validated data, and provided edits. Kelsey Ichikawa and Sarah Richardson provided feedback and edits.