Legal framework and institutional responsibilities
- Statistics Sweden (SCB) is responsible for official statistics and for other government statistics. SCB develops, produces and disseminates the statistics, and coordinates the system for the official statistics in Sweden.
- The Public Health Agency of Sweden (PHAS) is an expert authority with national responsibility for public health issues and public health statistics. It works to ensure the population is protected against communicable diseases and other health threats.
- The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) is an expert authority responsible for major health system performance indicators of social services, health and medical services, patient safety and epidemiology. NBHW produces and develops statistics for the Government and for health care regions (health care) and municipalities (home-based health care, long-term care and social services).
- The health care regions are responsible for health care quality registries, which totals to around 110 covering disease-specific areas (reporting not mandatory).
- The governmental agencies such as the National Board of Health and Welfare, Statistics Sweden, and Public Health Agency of Sweden are accountable to the Government (Ministry of Health and Social Affairs).
Health information strategy
The official statistics are regulated according to the Official Statistics Act (2001:99) and the Official Statistics Ordinance (2001:100)
The main legislation is the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400), chapter 24, article 8. It governs the confidentiality of data and states that information required for research or statistical purposes that cannot be directly linked to an individual may be released, if it is clear that disclosure may not lead to any harm of the individual in question.
Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400)
