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Epidemiologists and public health researchers are moving very slowly in the data sharing revolution, and agencies that maintain global health databases are reluctant to share data too. Once investments in infrastructure have been made, recycling and combining data provide access to maximum knowledge for minimal additional cost. By refusing to share data, researchers are slowing progress towards reducing illness and death and are denying a public good to taxpayers who support most of the research. Funders of public health research are beginning to call for change and developing data sharing policies. However they are not yet adequately addressing the obstacles that underpin the failure to share data. These include professional structures that reward publication of analysis but not of data, and funding streams and career paths that continue to undervalue critical data management work. Practical issues need to be sorted out too: how and where should data be stored for the long term, who wilt control access, and who will pay for those services? Existing metadata standards need to be extended to cope with health data. These obstacles have been known for some time; most can be overcome in the field of public health just as they have been overcome in other fields. However no institution has taken the lead in defining a work plan and carving up the tasks and the bill. In this round table paper, we suggest goals for data sharing and a work plan for reaching them, and challenge respondents to move beyond well intentioned but largely aspirational data sharing plans. Les epidemiologistes et les chercheurs en sante publique s'engagent tres lentement dans la revolution que subit le partage des donnees et les agences chargees d'entretenir les bases de donnees mondiales sur la sante sont reticentes a ce partage. Une fois certains investissements consentis dans les infrastructures, le recyclage et la combinaison des donnees peuvent donner acces a un maximum de connaissances pour un cout additionnel minimal. En refusant le partage des donnees, les chercheurs ralentissent les progres vers la reduction de la morbidite et de la mortalite et interdisent l'acces a l'information a un public tout juste bon a payer les impots qui financent la plupart de leurs recherches. Les apporteurs de fonds pour la recherche en sante publique commencent a appeler au changement et a developper des politiques de partage des donnees. Cependant, lis n'ont pas encare trouve de moyens adequats pour aplanir ies obstacles responsables de l'echec de ce partage. II s'agit notamment de structures professionnelles qui recompensent la publication d'une analyse, mais pas celle des donnees, et de flux de financement et d'evolutions de carriere qui continuent de sous-evaluer le travail essentiel de gestion des donnees. II convient aussi de serier les problemes pratiques: ou et comment les donnees doivent-elles etre stockees sur le Iong terme, qui exercera un controle sur les acces et qui paiera pour ces services? Les normes existantes pour les metadonnees doivent etre etendues pour couvrir les donnees relatives a la sante. Ces obstacles sont connus depuis un certain temps ;la plupart d'entre eux peuvent etre surmontes dans le domaine de la sante publique tout comme lis l'ont ete dans d'autres secteurs. Neanmoins, aucune institution n'a pris la direction des operations pour definir un plan de travail et repartir les taches et la facture. Dans cet article destine a une table ronde, naus proposons des objectifs pour le partage des donnees et un plan de travail pour les atteindre et naus sollicitons des reponses pour aller au-dela de plans de partage des donnees bien intentionnes, mais largement utopistes. Los epidemiologos e investigadores en salud publica estan avanzando muy lentamente en la revolucion dei intercambio de datas, y ademas los organismos que mantienen las bases de datas mundiales sobre salud se muestran reacios a compartir su informacion. Una vez realizadas las inversiones en infraestructuras, la reutilizacion y combinacion de datas brindan acceso a un maximo de conocimientos con un costa adicional minimo. Al negarse a compartir los datas, los investigadores estan frenando los progresos hacia la reduccion de la morbilidad y la mortalidad y estan negando un bien publico a contribuyentes que apoyan la mayor parte de las investigaciones. Los agentes de financiacion de las investigaciones en salud publica estan empezando a exigir cambias y a elaborar politicas de intercambio de datas. Sin embargo, aun no estan abordando adecuadamente los obstaculos que impiden compartir esos datas. Entre ellos cabe citar unas estructuras profesionales que recompensan la publicacion de analisis, pero no de datas, y unas fuentes de financiacion y unas perspectivas de carrera que siguen sin reconocer el caracter crucial de la gestion de datas. Es preciso esclarecer tambien algunos aspectos practicos: como y donde deben conservarse los datas a largo plazo, quien controlara el acceso y quien pagara esos servicios. Las normas existentes sobre metadatos deben ampliarse para poder manejar los datas sanitarios. Estas dificultades son conocidas desde hace ya algun tiempo, pero la mayoria pueden ser superadas en el campo de la salud publica ai igual que han sido superadas en otros campos. Sin embargo, ninguna institucion ha tomado la iniciativa para definir un plan de trabajo y repartirse las tareas y los costas asociados. En este articulo de la mesa redonda proponemos metas para el intercambio de datas y un plan de trabajo para su consecucion, y alentamos a los encuestados a trazar algo mas que unos planes de intercambio de datas bienintencionados peta demasiado ambiciosos. Une traducion en francais de ce resume figure a, la fin de l'article. Al final del articulo se facilita una traduccion al espanol. [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Introduction As they prepare for careers in science, today's students doubtless hear the same cliches as we did a generation ago: science advances collaboratively; we reproduce and extend the work [...]

Count data arise in various organizational settings. When the release of such data is sensitive, organizations need information-disclosure policies that protect data confidentiality while still providing data access. In contrast to extant disclosure policies, we describe a new policy for count tables that is based on disclosing only the sufficient statistics of a flexible discrete distribution. This distribution, the COM-Poisson, well approximates Poisson counts but also under- and over-dispersed counts. The sufficient statistics mask the exact cell counts and often also the table size. Under the scenario of a data holding agency and a data snooper, we show that this policy has low disclosure risk with no loss of data utility: Usually, many count tables correspond to the disclosed sufficient statistics. Furthermore, these count tables are equally likely to be the undisclosed table. Finding these solutions requires solving a system of linear equations, which are underdetermined for tables with more than three cells, and can be computationally prohibitive for even small tables. We also consider cell-specific interval bounds, a commonly used disclosure limitation policy, and compare them to our policy. We describe several types of snooper knowledge, their integration with the disclosed statistics, and implications. Applying this policy to three real data sets, we illustrate the low associated disclosure risk. Key words: sufficient statistics; Conway-Maxwell-Poisson; disclosure risk; data snooper, 1. Introduction The problem of data disclosure from statistical databases has become central in recent years. There are great efforts invested in promoting data access and publishing statistics while protecting [...]