Grant: Project Grant

Data linkage is used to connect data sets together so that individuals can be seen as they use services across different services and over time. Linking data is recognized as important for improving public policy and health and social outcomes. There is also some potential risk involved as data linkage often requires the use of names and other personal information. Population Data BC is one of a few centres in Canada that make data available to researchers and are trusted to conduct data linkage. Despite well-regarded policies and processes and an impeccable track record, some data stewards are reticent to share such detailed information, especially in a context of multiple data sets being brought together. New developments in privacy preserving record linkage are aimed at reducing the need to use identifiers in their raw form for data linkage. Linkage systems that use encryption and other advanced techniques to mask data prior to linkage are in development, but the quality of their results have yet to be tested and evaluated in real-world situations. Our long-term objective is to be able to conduct high-quality linkages without the use of named information in its raw form. The objective of this current grant is to test, modify, re-test, evaluate and improve these approaches, with an overarching question of whether the methods can be appropriately adapted and scaled for use in real-world setting.