ArticlePublic health ethics2020
Scraping the Web for Public Health Gains: Ethical Considerations from a 'Big Data' Research Project on HIV and Incarceration.
Article in Public health ethics, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Ethical issues raised by artificial intelligence and big data in population health: a scoping review.Frontiers in sociology · 2025Pooled it
- Non-empirical methods for ethics research on digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health: a systematic journal review.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2024Pooled it
- Evaluating the utility of public-facing jail registers to inform public health practice, Washington state 2023.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The quest for open datasets: all that glitters is not gold.European radiology · 2024Article
- Developing the DIGIFOOD Dashboard to Monitor the Digitalization of Local Food Environments: Interdisciplinary Approach.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Extracting big data from the internet to support the development of a new patient-reported outcome measure for breast implant illness: a proof of concept study.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Spatio-temporal evaluation of social media as a tool for livestock disease surveillance.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2023Article
- COVID-Scraper: An Open-Source Toolset for Automatically Scraping and Processing Global Multi-Scale Spatiotemporal COVID-19 Records.IEEE access : practical innovations, open solutions · 2021Article
- Article
- Advancing a Data Justice Framework for Public Health Surveillance.AJOB empirical bioethicsArticle
- The Challenges of Big Data for Research Ethics Committees: A Qualitative Swiss Study.Journal of empirical research on human research ethics : JERHREArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Web scraping involves using computer programs for automated extraction and organization of data from the Web for the purpose of further data analysis and use. It is frequently used by commercial companies, but also has become a valuable tool in epidemiological research and public health planning. In this paper, we explore ethical issues in a project that "scrapes" public websites of U.S. county jails as part of an effort to develop a comprehensive database (including individual-level jail incarcerations, court records and confidential HIV records) to enhance HIV surveillance and improve continuity of care for incarcerated populations. We argue that the well-known framework of Emanuel et al. (2000) provides only partial ethical guidance for the activities we describe, which lie at a complex intersection of public health research and public health practice. We suggest some ethical considerations from the ethics of public health practice to help fill gaps in this relatively unexplored area.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.