Child Health Data: Collaborations
between Schools and Health
Departments
Data from schools can
be used to:
Track immunization coverage to avoid infectious
disease outbreaks, like mumps or measles.
Identify trends in chronic diseases, such as rates of
overweight and obesity, diabetes, asthma, and other
diet-related conditions.
Identify and analyze environmental exposures such as
exposure to lead.
Evaluate effectiveness of programs targeting children.
•Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act:
•Prevents the disclosure of protected health information
(PHI) to any third parties without consent.
•Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
•Prevents disclosure of personally identifiable information
(PII) in a student’s record without consent of a parent/
guardian or a student over 18 .
•t
Entities Covered
FERPA
HIPAA
• All educational institutions
• All healthcare entities and
(elementary, middle, high
healthcare providers
school and secondary) and
transmitting health
non-school entities funded by
information in any form.
the department of education.
Information Covered
FERPA
•“Personally identifiable
information” (PII) (name,
address, other personal
identifiers).
HIPAA
• “Protected health
information” (PHI), which is
individually identifiable health
information.
De-Identified and Limited
Data
FERPA
HIPAA
• Schools can provide health
agencies with access to
student health and other
relevant data if the
information does not contain
PII.
• Allows the release of limited
data sets—in which specific
identifiers about the patient
or household have been
removed—for public health,
research, and other purposes.
• If data includes PII , school
must obtain written consent
before sharing the data with
health officials.
• Users of limited data sets
must complete a data use
agreement covering the
protection of remaining PHI
in the data.
Public Health Activities
FERPA
HIPAA
• FERPA does NOT contain a
“public health exception” like
to the one found in HIPAA.
• HIPAA contains a robust
exception which allows public
health authorities to receive
PHI without consent of a
patient or his or her
representative
Implications of FERPA
Can potentially interfere with the collection of
essential public health information .
In 2007, APHA called for the amending of FERPA in
order to allow schools to share PII with public health
authorities without prior authorization