TY  - JOUR
AU  - Intemann, Timm
AU  - Kaulke, Knut
AU  - Kipker, Dennis-Kenji
AU  - Lettieri, Vanessa
AU  - Stallmann, Christoph
AU  - Schmidt, Carsten O
AU  - Bialke, Martin
AU  - Hampf, Christopher
AU  - Stahl, Dana
AU  - Lablans, Martin
AU  - Kraywinkel, Klaus
AU  - Bartholomäus, Sebastian
AU  - Näher, Anatol-Fiete
AU  - Tremper, Galina
AU  - Lambarki, Mohamed
AU  - March, Stefanie
AU  - Prasser, Fabian
AU  - Haber, Anna Christine
AU  - Drepper, Johannes
AU  - Schlünder, Irene
AU  - Kirsten, Toralf
AU  - Pigeot, Iris
AU  - Sax, Ulrich
AU  - Buchner, Benedikt
AU  - Semler, Sebastian C
AU  - Ahrens, Wolfgang
TI  - Improving record linkage for health research-how to overcome deficiencies? [Verbesserung des Record Linkage für die Gesundheitsforschung in Deutschland – wie können Defizite behoben werden?]
JO  - Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz
VL  - 68
IS  - 12
SN  - 0007-5914
CY  - Heidelberg
PB  - Springer
M1  - DKFZ-2025-02570
SP  - 1440-1449
PY  - 2025
N1  - 2025 Dec;68(12):1440-1449
AB  - Linking different health data at the personal level (record linkage, RL) allows answering scientific questions that could otherwise not be answered by a single data source. Linked data therefore offer great potential for health research to improve prevention, treatment, and care at the population level. Personal health data are protected by strict legal regulations. Its use requires balancing legitimate interests in protecting personal data and health benefits. However, current laws and their interpretations in Germany place severe restrictions on health data RL such that its potential for improving health outcomes is still to be leveraged. In Germany, RL is also hindered by the lack of a unique identifier that enables error-free merging across different data sources. Overall, there is a lack of interoperable solutions to perform comprehensive RL across studies and data sources in a secure environment.In this article, we propose solutions for the linkage of personal health data from different sources based on the White Paper - Verbesserung des Record Linkage für die Gesundheitsforschung in Deutschland. Our proposed solutions include, among others, the establishment of a health ID and the creation of a decentralized federated research data infrastructure with central components. Although these proposals are in line with the General Data Protection Regulation, there is a need for further legal regulation in specific cases.
KW  - Data linkage (Other)
KW  - Data sharing (Other)
KW  - FAIR principles (Other)
KW  - Research data infrastructure (Other)
KW  - Unique identifier (Other)
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:41263970
DO  - DOI:10.1007/s00103-025-04153-y
UR  - https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/306358
ER  -