Background: New confidentiality issues in infectious disease surveillance have emerged as a result of innovations in surveillance technologies and recent efforts at integrated data analyses. Despite similarities in many behavioral and biological aspects of transmission of STDs and HIV, the methods employed to ensure confidentiality often differ among STD and HIV programs. Consequently, data that are collected are often not shared, and there can be inefficient use of existing resources. For example, behavioral and/or socio-demographic data associated with STD and HIV surveillance can be mutually beneficial to the understanding of transmission dynamics. However, those data are often inaccessible to epidemiologists in the respective programs.

Purpose: 1) To provide a forum in which STD and HIV epidemiologists can discuss contemporary issues of confidentiality with colleagues with whom they might not otherwise interact, 2) to expose workshop participants to programmatic and data analysis techniques for data collection and analysis that preserve confidentiality, and 3) to enable workshop participants to access online resources for improving their surveillance capacity while maintaining confidentiality.

Methods (instructional approach): Members of the Outcome Assessment through Systems of Integrated Surveillance (OASIS) workgroup and STD and HIV experts at the state and federal levels will lead a series of discussions that will give the participant practical examples of how data collection and analysis can be accomplished in innovative ways while preserving confidentiality. Examples will be chosen to be relevant to routine STD and HIV surveillance activities seen in state and local health departments. This will be followed by a live demonstration of data suppression software.