Issues in protecting confidentiality in national health statistics

This paper reviews the confidentiality policies of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). It relates these both to the 1974 Privacy Act and to the needs of users of health statistics. The four major issues considered in the paper are: (1) the implications of present confidentiality laws with respect to NCHS, (2) the issue of gaining informed consent in telephone interviews, (3) questions concerning the release of NCHS information on public use data tapes, (4) the implications for NCHS policies of the recently proposed legislation on the confidentiality of federal statistical records.