A public health response to data interoperability to prevent child maltreatment

The sharing of data, particularly health data, has been an important tool for the public health community, especially in terms of data sharing across systems (i.e., interoperability). Child maltreatment is a serious public health issue that could be better mitigated if there were interoperability. There are challenges to addressing child maltreatment interoperability that include the current lack of data sharing among systems, the lack of laws that promote interoperability to address child maltreatment, and the lack of data sharing at the individual level. There are waivers in federal law that allow for interoperability to prevent communicable diseases at the individual level. Child maltreatment has a greater long-term impact than a number of communicable diseases combined, and interoperability should be leveraged to maximize public health strategies to prevent child maltreatment.