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The U.S. Census Bureau announced today the establishment of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations and has named Shane Snowdon as a member of the committee.

The National Advisory Committee will advise the Census Bureau on a wide range of variables that affect the cost, accuracy and implementation of the Census Bureau's programs and surveys, including the once-a-decade census. The committee, which is comprised of 32 members from multiple disciplines, will advise the Census Bureau on topics such as housing, children, youth, poverty, privacy, race and ethnicity, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other populations.

“We expect that the expertise of this committee will help us meet emerging challenges the Census Bureau faces in producing statistics about our diverse nation,” said Thomas Mesenbourg, the Census Bureau's acting director. “By helping us better understand a variety of issues that affect statistical measurement, this committee will help ensure that the Census Bureau continues to provide relevant and timely statistics used by federal, state and local governments as well as business and industry in an increasingly technologically oriented society.”

The National Advisory Committee members, who serve at the discretion of the Census Bureau director, are chosen to serve based on expertise and knowledge of the cultural patterns, issues and/or statistical needs of hard-to-count populations.

Shane Snowdon heads the LGBT Health and Aging Program of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organization in the U.S. She was previously founding director of the University of California, San Francisco's Center for LGBT Health and Equity, for 14 years the nation's only LGBT office in a health care or health education setting. She has provided LGBT training and consulting for hundreds of hospitals, health professional schools and other organizations throughout the U.S. She has also written extensively on LGBT topics, serving as project adviser for The Joint Commission's “LGBT Field Guide” and authoring “Recommendations for LGBT Equity & Inclusion in Health Professions Education” (2012).