public-attitudes-to-commercial-access-to-health-data-wellcome-mar16.pdf (2.77 MB)
The One-Way Mirror: Public attitudes to commercial access to health data
journal contribution
posted on 2017-11-20, 11:30 authored by Ipsos MORIData is collected throughout the health service in increasingly large quantities, as well as in the
contexts of biomedical and health research. Data is collected for direct care and for secondary
uses as well.
In surveys, such as Ipsos MORI's work for the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the public say
that in principle they do not want their health records being shared with private companies.
However, there are many different types of commercial access going on now, and possible in
future. The Wellcome Trust therefore wanted to investigate how, and in what ways, the public
would distinguish between different types of commercial access; and whether the type of data
used, and the types of data user, would have an influence on the level of acceptability to the
public.
The Trust therefore commissioned Ipsos MORI to carry out research to understand how
attitudes towards commercial access to health data are formed and influenced, among a
cross-section of the British general public and with specific audiences such as healthcare
professionals, patients, and members of cohort studies.
