Statistical perspectives on confidentiality and data access in public health

Confidentiality and disclosure limitation are topics that are inherently st atistical but, until recently, they have received limited attention from st atistical methodologists. That situation has changed considerably in the pr esent decade. In this paper, we provide an introduction and overview of som e statistical disclosure limitation issues that are of special relevance to public health studies and surveys, and the linkages to current research on bounds for multi-dimensional contingency table entries and 'simulated' cat egorical data. We also describe how these research methods relate to a new data access query system being developed for use by NCHS and other statisti cal agencies. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.