Confidentiality of Personal Information

The confidentiality of each individual's personal information will be protected. We will never violate people's confidentiality. We respect how important your privacy is to you. Your personal information will stay private. We are taking a number of specific steps to make sure nothing happens that would violate your trust in sharing the information with us.

First, only the people who absolutely have to have access to personal information will be able to see it at all, and each of them has to sign an oath that they will keep it confidential. These individuals are scientific investigators required to maintain confidentiality. We have procedures in place to assure this. For example, computer files that have personal information will require passwords to see them.
We will keep all personal information like name and address completely separate from health information, and use a special identification number to know which health information goes with which person. Only authorized study team members have access to those coded identification numbers.
Finally, any information we share with the settlement or the public will only have patterns for groups of people described, never anything about individuals.

We work at three different universities and each one has a Review Board that oversees our work. One of the main purposes of these boards is to make sure we are keeping personal information secure. Again, the confidentiality of each individual participating in our studies will be protected.



Community Study Summary
Home The Science Panel Panel Members Press Community Study Summary - Introduction - Why Further Study is Necessary - The Studies At A Glance - Timeline - Confidentiality of Personal Information - Additional Community Participation C8 Study results C8 Test Results Consent Form C8 Health Project Links Contact	Confidentiality of Personal Information The confidentiality of each individual's personal information will be protected. We will never violate people's confidentiality. We respect how important your privacy is to you. Your personal information will stay private. We are taking a number of specific steps to make sure nothing happens that would violate your trust in sharing the information with us. First, only the people who absolutely have to have access to personal information will be able to see it at all, and each of them has to sign an oath that they will keep it confidential. These individuals are scientific investigators required to maintain confidentiality. We have procedures in place to assure this. For example, computer files that have personal information will require passwords to see them. We will keep all personal information like name and address completely separate from health information, and use a special identification number to know which health information goes with which person. Only authorized study team members have access to those coded identification numbers. Finally, any information we share with the settlement or the public will only have patterns for groups of people described, never anything about individuals. We work at three different universities and each one has a Review Board that oversees our work. One of the main purposes of these boards is to make sure we are keeping personal information secure. Again, the confidentiality of each individual participating in our studies will be protected.