Balancing access to health data and privacy: a review of the issues and approaches for the future.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There has been a dramatic increase in the types of microdata, and this holds great promise for health services research. However, legislative efforts to protect individual privacy have reduced the flow of health care data for research purposes and increased costs and delays, affecting the quality of analysis.

Aim

This paper provides an overview of the challenges raised by concerns about data confidentiality in the context of health services research, the current methodologies used to ensure data security, and a description of one successful approach to balancing access and privacy. Materials and Methods. We analyze the issues of access and privacy using a conceptual framework based on balancing the risk of reidentification with the utility associated with data ana

SUBMITTER: Lane J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2965886 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature