Dr Kiran Pohar Manhas

Kiran Pohar Manhas, Stacey Page, Nicole Letourneau, and Suzanne Tough
Alberta Centre for Child, Family & Community Research
University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
April 4, 2014
Big Data 2014 Conference
Melbourne, Australia
Parents TRUST the data
sharing trajectory when…
Account
-ability
Parents perspectives
DIVERGE around…
Children
Process
Protections
Secondary
Researchers
“The value of data lies in their use.”
Committee on Transborder Flow of Scientific Data. Bits of power: Issues in global access to scientific data, National Research Council, 1997.
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-80864542/stock-photo-many-small-ideas-equal-a-big-one-illustrated-with-chalk-drawn-light-bulbs-ona-blackboard.html
Literature
emphasizes
 Adults
(public +
research)
 Biological
data
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/d/data_protection.asp
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
http://www.calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com/research/demographicspopulation/overview




Prospective, multiyear epidemiologic studies
Large samples
Long-term follow
Wealth of data on children and families (incl
parents)
Physical
Demographic
Parenting
Emotional
Health
Nutrition
Social
Adverse events
Sleep
Developmental
Environment
Genetics
2008 - 2014
All Our Babies
(AOB)
Alberta Pregnancy
Outcomes &
Nutrition (APrON)
Time-points: Pregnancy (26
wks, 32 wks), Postpartum (3-4
mos), and Childhood (1,2 & 3
yrs old)
2014 Forward
The Alberta
Birth
Cohort
Dataset
• 5500 mom-baby pairs
• 5 years of follow-up
• Questionnaire +
biological data
The Child
Data
Centre of
Alberta
(CDCA)

To describe birth cohort parent values and
preferences related to the long-term use, and
continued access, of their and their child’s
individual, non-biological data held in
research repositories, generally and the
CDCA specifically
AOB & APRON PARENT PARTICIPANTS (N = 37)
4 Focus Groups
19 Interviews
Values & Preferences
Data sharing
benefits & risks
CDCA
Governance
Consent Models

When, and why, parents trust data sharing
(concept and process trajectory)?

What areas are contentious amongst
parents?
Accountability
Process
Protections

“I think that it’s a good idea, that the data be
available to share because I think that it takes
a lot of time to collect the information and
[sic] once it’s there then having it available for
other people to use and to find out new
things is [sic] a good, good idea.”
[mom, interview]

“ .. If you [the CDCA] don’t know exactly
who’s using [the data in the future] then I
wouldn’t want certain things associated with
my data, I know that makes the data maybe
less useful. But, yeah for me it would be more
like name and things like that...”
[mom, interview]

“…I think that putting [sic] a formal request
process in place makes a lot of sense, and you’re
going to weed out a lot of different groups that
are you know trying to get data but not willing
to do the work involved. … You’ll have people
that are more serious about using it for the right
reasons, so that’s definitely a strength. I think
that meeting certain qualification criteria is also
a strength.”
[mom, interview]

“I know [opt-out consent] is a passive yes… I
know like (giggling) in my experience, I'm lazy.
So, … it might be on my list to do but if other
things happen, it may get bumped and I might
forget about [it] or whatever and then later I’m
like “oh no!” … Whereas when it’s the researcher
contacting the person, in some ways I think that
… it shows a little more respect because the
researcher makes more of the effort…”
[mom, interview]

“I would think that there would need to be some
kind of committee around accountability and
following up to ensure that the data was used
appropriately.”
[mom, interview]

“I like the contract idea and maybe a line of
penalties if the data is misused, if they use it for
personal gain or a third party company that’s not
affiliated with this, with what they’re using it for
or something.”
[dad, interview]
Children
Secondary
researchers

“Well I think that
whenever it’s children
[sic], you want sort of
higher safeguards right
and, and more checks
and more security,
particularly around the
personal identification
type of stuff because it’s
not [sic] them deciding,
it’s their guardians.”
[mom, interview]

“I just don’t think that
[sic] children’s data
versus adult’s data
should be something
differently. … It should
be protected whether its
child or an adult.”
[mom, interview]

“If you contacted
[children] when they
became an adult or
whatever, that would be
another logistical [issue].
... You just trust the
consent of the parent
when the child was a
child….”
[mom, interview]

“I think that she [the
child] should have the
option that [at] 18, or
whatever it is in the
province, to have her
data … taken out if she’s
really that [sic]
passionate about [it].”
[mom, interview]

“The industry section is all for
profit so I mean that, that’s a
little sketchy right because that
has nothing to do with what
we’ve already discussed about
being smart and research and
not more money and that kind
of thing, it’s you know the other
side of things. But, again if they
have that information and
they’re using it to make better
products, better drugs, better
food I mean that, that benefits
everybody too. …I really just
don’t see any significant down
sides to data sharing except for
you know the whole cha-ching.”
[mom, focus group]

“I don’t really like the
pharmaceutical industry, just as
a personal thing so I don’t really
know that I’d want my
information going there, cause
that’s not why I did the study.”
[mom, focus group]

Participants highly unfamiliar with study
topic

Focus groups vs. interviews

CDCA governance
 Post-access accountability
 Clarify privacy protections

Future research
 Quantitative parent survey
 Adolescent perspectives
Kiran Pohar Manhas
Post Doctoral Fellow
[email protected]
Child Data Centre of Alberta
www.research4children.com
AOB & APrON
[email protected] and
[email protected]
Research ethics – University of Calgary
[email protected]