Why the federal government needs to change how it collects data on Native Americans

While these changes are welcome and will go a long way toward helping create a more accurate picture of demographic identity in the U.S., they dont improve data representation for a group that has long been misrepresented: American Indians and Alaska Natives (here collectively referred to as Native Americans). In particular, the way the U.S. government currently collects, aggregates, and publishes race and ethnicity data can lead to the exclusion of more than three-quarters of Native Americans from some official data sets. These practices may bias research, contribute to negative policy impacts, and perpetuate long-standing misunderstandings about Native American populations.