CSTE Overdose Anomaly Toolkit: Data Sources and Considerations

Data Sources & Considerations

Last Updated: March 2022

The objective of sharing data in an overdose outbreak event is to take advantage of all relevant data sources available to the health department and all partners involved in the response planning and come to an agreement on the most effective ways to utilize and interpret this data. The responding jurisdiction may either have regulations in place to share data in an overdose event with different partners or may need to create a data sharing plan. In both cases, it is important to remember that this is a dynamic and iterative process that needs to be assessed at constant time intervals to ensure that it aligns with current goals and make revisions when required.

Data Privacy

Data privacy encompasses laws and regulations that control the visibility of sensitive health information and protect patient confidentiality. Some examples are Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), laws governing electronic health records (EHRs), regulations on telehealth, and other technology. Sharing health department data in case of an overdose event with internal and external partners, community coalitions and the public also vary between jurisdictions. This variation is brought forth by data sharing laws that are unique to each data source, laws that govern data sharing by individual organizations and state governments, and in some cases, regulations mandated by the federal government.

Data Suppression Rules

The main purpose of data suppression rules is to protect against the release of identifying information and release data with a maximum amount of precision so that it can guide the overdose response planning in a community. The extent of data that can be shared with an internal partner is different from what can be shared with an external agency and the public. While some data sources can be shared completely with an internal partner, it is possible that only de-identified or aggregate data can be shared for other data sources. When it comes to external partners and the public, most jurisdictions only report when cases in the numerator are more than ten. Counts less than or equal to ten are not reported. Additionally, there are criteria to determine the base population and individual situations based on the ratio of numerator and denominator. For example, data can be identified when the numerator (number of cases) is very high, and the denominator (base population) is low. Given these intricacies, it is highly recommended to involve data stewards for each data source and representatives from the public health agency’s data privacy/governance office in decision-making.

Data Governance

The objective of sharing data in an overdose outbreak event is to take advantage of all relevant data sources available to the health department and all partners involved in the response planning and come to an agreement on the most effective ways to utilize and interpret this data. The responding jurisdiction may either have regulations in place to share data in an overdose event with different partners or may need to create a data sharing plan. In both cases, it is important to remember that this is a dynamic and iterative process that needs to be assessed at constant time intervals to ensure that it aligns with current goals and make revisions when required.

Glossary

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