Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News

The federal government has regulated informed consent for decades. But some advocacy organizations are warning that proposed federal guidelines-which could be finalized in the upcoming year-could have a chilling effect on innovation, while fundamentally altering which studies get done.

Data mining, often employed by political teams and mass marketers, uses statistical analysis to find patterns within large data sets to project trends about individual behavior and demographics. It's a tool public health agencies are finding to be valuable.