Facilitating the secondary use of health data for public interest purposes across borders

Recent technological developments create significant opportunities to process health data in the public interest. However, the growing fragmentation of frameworks applied to data has become a structural impediment to fully leverage these opportunities. Public and private stakeholders suggest that three key areas should be analysed to support this outcome, namely: the convergence of governance frameworks applicable to health data use in the public interest across jurisdictions; the harmonisation of national procedures applicable to secondary health data use; and the public perceptions around the use of health data. This paper explores each of these three key areas and concludes with an overview of collective findings relating specifically to the convergence of legal bases for secondary data use.