Authored by: Kyle R. MacDonald, Danielle Barrasse, and Myrela BaumanPosted: June 28, 2021In public health, much of our work depends on having accurate data, so we know what’s happening both on the ground and at a population level. Unfortunately, in many cases data has erased diversity by collapsing distinct groups of people into “convenient” categories for statistical purposes. This erasure frequently occurs when people from across the Americas are all labeled as Hispanic/Latinx, when hundreds of distinct tribal communities are all coded as American Indian, or when everyone who is not cis-gender or heterosexual is...