Open AccessScraping the Web for Public Health Gains: Ethical Considerations from a ‘Big Data’ Research Project on HIV and Incarceration
Author(s) -
Stuart Rennie,
Mara Buchbinder,
Eric T. Juengst,
Lauren BrinkleyRubinstein,
Colleen Blue,
David L. Rosen
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
public health ethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1754-9981
pISSN - 1754-9973
DOI - 10.1093/phe/phaa006
Subject(s) - confidentiality , public health , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , public relations , intersection (aeronautics) , web application , ethical issues , psychology , sociology , internet privacy , medicine , political science , engineering ethics , engineering , world wide web , law , computer science , nursing , family medicine , aerospace engineering
Web scraping involves using computer programs for automated extraction and organization of data from the Web for the purpose of further data analysis and use. It is frequently used by commercial companies, but also has become a valuable tool in epidemiological research and public health planning. In this paper, we explore ethical issues in a project that "scrapes" public websites of U.S. county jails as part of an effort to develop a comprehensive database (including individual-level jail incarcerations, court records and confidential HIV records) to enhance HIV surveillance and improve continuity of care for incarcerated populations. We argue that the well-known framework of Emanuel et al. (2000) provides only partial ethical guidance for the activities we describe, which lie at a complex intersection of public health research and public health practice. We suggest some ethical considerations from the ethics of public health practice to help fill gaps in this relatively unexplored area.