This award provides partial support for a two-day workshop on record linkage in Washington, D.C. on 20-21 March 1997. The workshop is sponsored by the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences, the Washington Statistical Society, the Bureau of the Census, the National Agricultural Statistical Service, and the National Center for Health Statistics. The whole concept of data sharing is broad-based and pervasive; consequently, many different governmental agencies as well as the private sector will benefit from this workshop. Since the only previous major U.S. record linkage workshop (in 1985), much has been accomplished, especially in recent years, and new areas of related research have arisen. A sampling of these which the conference will spotlight includes the increased privacy concerns due to record linkage, the growing importance of more efficient use of statistical resources by using record linkage, heightened interest in linkage technology due to debates such as health care reform, issues in physical security of data, and the measurement of nondisclosure and reidentification risks in public use microdata files. Proceedings of the conference will capture the invited presentations as well as summarize discussions and suggest research challenges for the next decade.
