Reporting of race and ethnicity in the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, 1990.

Since 1989, all state health departments have reported cases of infectious diseases to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) through the National Electronic Telecommunications System for Surveillance (NETSS) (1). Electronic reporting allows reporting of additional information, including demographic data, that can be used to help define the scope of public health problems for different groups and to develop appropriate preventive interventions. This report describes reporting through NNDSS of notifiable diseases by patients' race/ethnicity for 1990.