Secondary Use of Medical and Health Data in Denmark and the Netherlands

Abstract

A number of European countries have established `register-based' statistical systems that cover administrative data Among them, countries including Denmark and the Netherlands have developed systems that enable the use of administrative data for research purposes, including systems which provide access to medical and health data. Based on the examples of Denmark and the Netherlands, this paper examines trends in the secondary use of medical and health data. This paper focuses on systems that allow researchers access to deidentified medical and health data. It also details the use of pseudonymization as a methodology for linking multiple administrative datasets via common identifiers. It is believed that these approaches can provide insights to further develop the use of administrative data in Japan.