Public Health Privacy

See also: Medical Records / Privacy / Medical Research

ASTHO - These are privacy reports funded by the CDC and published by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers.

Public Health, Law Enforcement, and Privacy Issues.  ASTHO developed this issue report to examine the benefits of partnerships between public health and law enforcement to achieve their respective goals while protecting the public’s health and privacy. The issue report features three partnerships and explores opportunities for future efforts.

HIPAA Privacy Rule Implementation in State Public Health Agencies--Successes, Challenges, and Future Needs. To assist with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) implementation, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) developed a brief survey to evaluate states’ experiences with the Act.  This issue report presents the survey results, including how states have classified themselves under the Privacy Rule, their outstanding achievements, implementation barriers, and how those barriers have been overcome.

Integrating Child Health Information Systems While Protecting Privacy. This report reviews focuses on how some state health agencies approach challenges presented by HIPAA and other privacy issues while designing and implementing their information systems. The four state public health agencies presented (Missouri, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Utah) were funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Health Resources and Services Administration to build integrated child health information systems [Book 4 of the Privacy and Public Health Practice Series] (April 2005).

Meeting the Challenges Presented by the HIPAA Privacy Rule in Public Health Practice.  This document shares state reflections on the HIPAA Privacy Rule and its impact on public health practice one year after its implementation.

The Impact of the HIPAA Privacy Rule on Syndromic Surveillance.  This paper reviews the major HIPAA privacy issues that state public health departments may encounter when conducting syndromic surveillance. [June 2004]

Data Sharing with Covered Entities Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule: A Review of Three State Public Health Approaches.  This report discusses the different approaches of three states to sharing protected health information, as well as aggregated data with covered entities under the HIPAA Privacy Rule. [May 2004]