De-identifying a public use microdata file from the Canadian national discharge abstract database

Emam, Khaled El; Paton, David; Dankar, Fida; Koru, Gunes

doi:10.1186/1472-6947-11-53

BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making

Table 1 Example data

From: De-identifying a public use microdata file from the Canadian national discharge abstract database

	IDENTIFYING VARIABLE		QUASI-IDENTIFIERS		SENSITIVE VARIABLES		Other Variables
ID	Name	Telephone Number	Sex	Year of Birth	Lab Test	Lab Result	PayDelay
1	John Smith	(412) 688-5468	Male	1959	Albumin, Serum	4.8	37
2	Alan Smith	(413) 822-5074	Male	1969	Creatine kinase	86	36
3	Alice Brown	(416) 886-5314	Female	1955	Alkaline Phosphatase	66	52
4	Hercules Green	(613) 763-5254	Male	1959	Bilirubin	Negative	36
5	Alicia Freds	(613) 586-6222	Female	1942	BUN/Creatinine Ratio	17	82
6	Gill Stringer	(954) 699-5423	Female	1975	Calcium, Serum	9.2	34
7	Marie Kirkpatrick	(416) 786-6212	Female	1966	Free Thyroxine Index	2.7	23
8	Leslie Hall	(905) 668-6581	Female	1987	Globulin, Total	3.5	9
9	Douglas Henry	(416) 423-5965	Male	1959	B-type natriuretic peptide	134.1	38
10	Fred Thompson	(416) 421-7719	Male	1967	Creatine kinase	80	21
11	Joe Doe	(705) 727-7808	Male	1968	Alanine aminotransferase	24	33
12	Lillian Barley	(416) 695-4669	Female	1955	Cancer antigen 125	86	28
13	Deitmar Plank	(416) 603-5526	Male	1967	Creatine kinase	327	37
14	Anderson Hoyt	(905) 388-2851	Male	1967	Creatine kinase	82	16
15	Alexandra Knight	(416) 539-4200	Female	1966	Creatinine	0.78	44
16	Helene Arnold	(519) 631-0587	Female	1955	Triglycerides	147	59
17	Almond Zipf	(519) 515-8500	Male	1967	Creatine kinase	73	20
18	Britney Goldman	(613) 737-7870	Female	1956	Monocytes	12	34
19	Lisa Marie	(902) 473-2383	Female	1956	HDL Cholesterol	68	141
20	William Cooper	(905) 763-6852	Male	1978	Neutrophils	83	21
21	Kathy Last	(705) 424-1266	Female	1966	Prothrombin Time	16.9	23
22	Deitmar Plank	(519) 831-2330	Male	1967	Creatine kinase	68	16
23	Anderson Hoyt	(705) 652-6215	Male	1971	White Blood Cell Count	13.0	151
24	Alexandra Knight	(416) 813-5873	Female	1954	Hemoglobin	14.8	34
25	Helene Arnold	(705) 663-1801	Female	1977	Lipase, Serum	37	27
26	Anderson Heft	(416) 813-6498	Male	1944	Cholesterol, Total	147	18
27	Almond Zipf	(617) 667-9540	Male	1965	Hematocrit	45.3	53

This hypothetical example table is used to illustrate a number of concepts that we use throughout the paper.

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ISSN: 1472-6947

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