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Remove obstacles to sharing health data with researchers outside of the European Union

Nature Medicine volume 27, pages 1329–1333 (2021)Cite this article

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COVID-19 has shown that international collaborations and global data sharing are essential for health research, but legal obstacles are preventing data sharing for non–pandemic-related research among public researchers across the world, with potentially damaging effects for citizens and patients.

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Fig. 1: Involvement of academies in the international sharing of health data for research.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the European Academies Science Advisory Council, the Federation of European Academies of Medicine, and All European Academies, as well as all members of the working group that contributed to writing the joint report3.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Heidi Beate Bentzen, Rosa Castro.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Heidi Beate Bentzen

  2. Cancer Registry of Norway, Oslo, Norway

    Heidi Beate Bentzen & Giske Ursin

  3. Federation of European Academies of Medicine, Brussels, Belgium

    Rosa Castro

  4. European Academies Science Advisory Council, German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Halle (Saale), Germany

    Robin Fears & Volker ter Meulen

  5. Department of Infectious Diseases and Medicine, St. George’s University of London, London, UK

    George Griffin

  6. Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Giske Ursin

  7. Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Giske Ursin

Authors
  1. Heidi Beate Bentzen
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  2. Rosa Castro
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  4. George Griffin
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  5. Volker ter Meulen
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  6. Giske Ursin
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All authors contributed to writing this Comment.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rosa Castro.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Bentzen, H.B., Castro, R., Fears, R. et al. Remove obstacles to sharing health data with researchers outside of the European Union. Nat Med 27, 1329–1333 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01460-0

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