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Individual privacy versus public good: protecting confidentiality in health research
Author(s) -
O'Keefe Christine M.,
Rubin Donald B.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
statistics in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.996
H-Index - 183
eISSN - 1097-0258
pISSN - 0277-6715
DOI - 10.1002/sim.6543
Subject(s) - confidentiality , health care , internet privacy , information privacy , business , computer science , risk analysis (engineering) , computer security , political science , law
Health and medical data are increasingly being generated, collected, and stored in electronic form in healthcare facilities and administrative agencies. Such data hold a wealth of information vital to effective health policy development and evaluation, as well as to enhanced clinical care through evidence‐based practice and safety and quality monitoring. These initiatives are aimed at improving individuals' health and well‐being. Nevertheless, analyses of health data archives must be conducted in such a way that individuals' privacy is not compromised. One important aspect of protecting individuals' privacy is protecting the confidentiality of their data. It is the purpose of this paper to provide a review of a number of approaches to reducing disclosure risk when making data available for research, and to present a taxonomy for such approaches. Some of these methods are widely used, whereas others are still in development. It is important to have a range of methods available because there is also a range of data‐use scenarios, and it is important to be able to choose between methods suited to differing scenarios. In practice, it is necessary to find a balance between allowing the use of health and medical data for research and protecting confidentiality. This balance is often presented as a trade‐off between disclosure risk and data utility, because methods that reduce disclosure risk, in general, also reduce data utility. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.