Expanding citizen engagement in the secondary use of health data: an opportunity for national health data access bodies to realise the intentions of the European health data space

Archives of Public Health

Comment

Marlies Saelaert¹  Louise Mathieu¹  Wannes Van Hoof¹  Brecht Devleesschauwer² 

[1] Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Sciensano, Rue Juliette Wytsman 14, 1050 Brussels, Belgium;Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Sciensano, Rue Juliette Wytsman 14, 1050 Brussels, Belgium;Department of Translational Physiology, Infectiology and Public Health, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium;

关键词: European Health Data Space;    Health information;    Health data;    Secondary use;    Citizen engagement;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13690-023-01182-4

 received in 2023-06-22, accepted in 2023-09-04,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

The European Health Data Space (EHDS) aims to make the primary use of health data for healthcare provision more continuous, effective, and (cost) efficient. Moreover, it pursues to facilitate the secondary use of health data for purposes such as research, innovation, and policy making. In the context of secondary use, the EHDS legislative proposal (published on 3 May 2022) argues that Member States should develop Health Data Access Bodies (HDABs) whose responsibilities include facilitating the secondary use of health data, issuing data permits, and implementing high levels of accountability and security. In Belgium, the setup in 2023 of a federal Health Data Agency (HDA) that is developing and implementing a policy strategy and framework for the secondary use of health data, aligns well with the responsibilities set out for HDABs. Even though the EHDS aspires the empowerment of citizens, for instance by giving them access to their health data and control over the healthcare professionals who can consult these data, this call for citizen empowerment resonates less loudly regarding secondary use. We think, however, that elaborating and implementing citizen engagement in the domain of secondary use is required to align secondary use with socio-ethical sensitivities, preferences, and values and to provide social legitimacy and ethical solidity to a health data governance system. When implementing the EHDS legislation on a national level, the Belgian HDA and the future HDABs in general might be excellent opportunities to realise this ambition of citizen involvement and empowerment. More specifically, we urge HDABs, firstly, to expand the field of citizen engagement towards the domain of secondary use and, secondly, to respect and facilitate the diversity of citizen engagement. This would offer citizens genuine, continuous and diversified possibilities of involvement and co-creation concerning the development of a solid ethical governance framework for health data.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023