Public Comment Data for the 2023 Case for the Middle Eastern and North African Checkbox in the United States

A public comment period outlining changes to the collection of race and ethnicity data on the US Census and other federal forms opened in January 2023. The purpose of this project is to collect and manage public comments in relation to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Statistical Policy Directive 15 proposals regarding the addition of a separate Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) checkbox on the US Census and other required federal forms. Public comments posted in February and March 2023 were reviewed to determine whether MENA was mentioned, whether comments supported a MENA checkbox, and whether comments mentioned support for health-related reasons. 

During the first review of comments, there were 3,062 comments reviewed. Most (71.49%) mentioned adding a MENA checkbox. Of those, 98.86% supported adding a MENA checkbox. Among those, 31.98% mentioned adding a MENA checkbox for health-related reasons. These results have been submitted for publication and are currently under peer review (see citation for pre-print below).

Data collection and review of comments is ongoing. As of April 25, 2023, there were 3,355 comments reviewed posted from February 1 though March 6, 2023. Of those, 72.10% mention the addition of the MENA checkbox. Of those, 98.97% supported adding a MENA checkbox. Among those, 31.38% mentioned adding a MENA checkbox for health-related reasons. For this analysis, we also looked at mentions of adding the MENA checkbox for language or linguistic services. Of the comments that supported adding the checkbox, 55.25% of the comments mentioned the need for a MENA checkbox for services to be provided for language and linguistic services.

The data provided is a STATA (.dta) file.