ArticleBundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz2025
[Improving record linkage for health research-how to overcome deficiencies?]
Article in Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mainzelliste: Ten years of pseudonymization, record linkage, and informed consent management.Patterns (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- [Improving record linkage for health research-how to overcome deficiencies?]Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2025Article
- [The Medical Informatics Initiative at a glance-establishing a health research data infrastructure in Germany].Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
26 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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.
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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.