Newsletter Archive
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Take Action! HRSA Uniform Data System and More
July 10, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreData System of the Week: HRSA Uniform Data System. In this notice, HRSA is revising the Uniform Data System, the annual reporting system used by federally supported health centers, largely to streamline reporting while adding some new measures on diabetes, disability, autism screening, patient support services, and upstream drivers of health. In addition, HRSA proposes to add a new question asking whether health centers provide puberty blockers, hormones, or surgical procedures to patients under 19 for the purpose of aligning their appearance with a gender identity different from their sex assigned at birth, which could increase scrutiny of health centers that provide gender-affirming care to transgender youth.
Comments due July 16.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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Register for Rapid Response Data Briefing: Critical Rulemaking for 2030 Census
July 08, 2026Read MoreThe Department of Commerce has submitted a proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget for review. The rule is titled “Decennial Census of the Population of Americans; Proposed Residence Criteria and Proposed Regulations for Demographic Questions”. While no additional details have been provided to the public, there are at least three key changes that experts predict may be under consideration:
Changes to residence criteria to reclassify noncitizens as nonresident
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Take Action! RFI on Family Friendly Transit and More
July 02, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreRFI of the Week: RFI on Family Friendly Transit. In this RFI, DOT asks a number of questions about data that is available for (or that should be available for) better understanding the availability and accessibility of public transportation. For example, the RFI asks for input on "the extent to which transit agencies collect and use data regarding accessibility of transit systems beyond the minimum ADA requirements;" as well as on "the extent to which agencies make real-time service data available to customers to support trip planning, including service disruptions."
Comments due August 3.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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Take Action! Consolidated State Performance Report Renewal and More
June 22, 2026by Meghan MauryRead MoreCollection of the Week: Consolidated State Performance Report Renewal. This reporting tool collects information from states related to the performance and monitoring activities of programs under ESSA and the McKinney-Vento Act. ED is making significant changes to the collection, including eliminating questions on Assessment waivers, Title III, Part A allocation timeline, McKinney-Vento and ARP Homeless, Certification requirement for OME, Postsecondary URLs, Title I, Part D, and Funding Transferability for State and Local Education Agencies; and combining the CSPR I and II into a single CSPR collection.
Comments due July 27.Every time the government makes a change to a survey or a form — or introduces a new survey or form — you have the right to weigh in on that decision. The Take Action! newsletter highlights surveys or forms the government is changing, renewing, or introducing. Click the links to tell the government what you think about the changes they are making.
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A New Commerce Policy Could Mean Less Public Data, Not Better Public Data
June 11, 2026by Christopher Steven Marcum, Meghan Maury, and Beth JaroszRead MoreLate last week, the Department of Commerce quietly issued a sweeping new policy that could reshape how the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) protect the privacy of people and businesses whose information they collect.
The policy bars the agencies from using “noise infusion,” a family of privacy-protection techniques that make small, controlled changes to published data so that no individual person, household, or business can be reidentified from publicly accessible datasets. One such technique that has garnered some controversy in the past is known as “differential privacy.” That may sound technical. But the stakes are simple: federal statistical agencies are required to do two things at once. They must protect confidential information, and they must publish useful public data. By taking away one of the tools agencies use to do both, the likely result is not “better data.” It may be less data, or less useful data.