Remove obstacles to sharing health data with researchers outside of the European Union

Heidi Beate Bentzen; Rosa Castro; Robin Fears; George Griffin; Volker Ter Meulen; Giske Ursin

doi:10.1038/s41591-021-01460-0

Remove obstacles to sharing health data with researchers outside of the European Union

Nat Med. 2021 Aug;27(8):1329-1333. doi: 10.1038/s41591-021-01460-0.

Authors

Heidi Beate Bentzen^#^{1

2}, Rosa Castro^#³, Robin Fears⁴, George Griffin⁵, Volker Ter Meulen⁴, Giske Ursin^{2

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
² Cancer Registry of Norway, Oslo, Norway.
³ Federation of European Academies of Medicine, Brussels, Belgium. rosa.castro@feam.eu.
⁴ European Academies Science Advisory Council, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Halle (Saale), Germany.
⁵ Department of Infectious Diseases and Medicine, St. George's University of London, London, UK.
⁶ Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁷ Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

COVID-19 has shown that international collaborations and global data sharing are essential for health research, but legal obstacles are preventing data sharing for non–pandemic-related research among public researchers across the world, with potentially damaging effects for citizens and patients.

MeSH terms

European Union
Health Services Research / organization & administration
Humans
Information Dissemination*