The Publication Scoring Criteria is provided as an example of a method that meets the requirements of Step 3 in the Data Assessment for Public Release Procedure. It is a tool to assess and quantify potential risk for re-identification of de-identified data based on three identification risks: size of potential population, variable specificity, and the impact of re-identification. The Publication Scoring Criteria is used to assess the need to suppress small cells less than 11 as a result of a small numerator (less than 11), small denominator (less than 20,001), or both small numerator and small denominator. That is why the Publication Scoring Criteria takes into account both numerator (e.g., Events) and denominator (e.g., Geography or Insurance Coverage variables).
The Publication Scoring Criteria is based on a framework that was used by the Illinois Department of Public Health, Illinois Center for Health Statistics when CalHHS Data De-Identification Guidelines Edition 1.0 was first prepared in 2016. Various other methods have been used to assess risk and the presence of sensitive or small cells. Public health has a long history of public provision of data and many methods have been used. Further discussion of other methods used to assess tables for sensitive or small cells is found in Section 4.4.
This section provides a more detailed review of the criteria that make up the Publication Scoring Criteria.
