For the first time, CHI can report data from the Colorado Health Access Survey (CHAS) on Colorado’s Middle Eastern and North African community.
CHI added Middle Eastern and North African as a distinct racial and ethnic category in 2021. Prior to that, these Coloradans had to select identities that were not always a true reflection of themselves. With three surveys worth of data, we now have a sample size large enough to report some information about this growing population.
This report marks another advance in CHI’s efforts to collect data in a nuanced and detailed way — making our numbers more reflective of the way people see themselves. CHI combined data from 2021 to 2025 to have a large enough sample to report on Colorado’s Middle Eastern and North African community. While the CHAS cannot yet provide findings on every survey metric for this group, it offers data-based insights that have not been possible until now.
Many members of the Middle Eastern and North African group also identify with other races or ethnicities. Prior to 2025, CHI reported race and ethnicity as mutually exclusive groups, meaning that many of them fell into a single “Mixed Race” category. Beginning in 2025, to better reflect the experiences of people who fall into multiple racial or ethnic categories, CHI began reporting race and ethnicity as non-mutually exclusive groups. This means that in our reports, someone who identifies as Middle Eastern or North African and white would be represented in both of those categories.
In addition to providing better context on the experiences of mixed-race Coloradans, this reporting change also allows for better reportability of certain communities that have previously been underrepresented in CHAS data. Therefore some 2025 data reported by race and ethnicity may not be directly comparable to data in previous CHAS reports.
If a respondent on the CHAS indicates they are Middle Eastern or North African, they are then provided a list of countries or regions and asked to select which ones best represent their ancestry. They may also write in their own terms. The list added to the CHAS in 2021 was sourced from ancestry data collected by the American Community Survey. The list is not exhaustive. Our team continues to review the list and is considering future updates.
