Reporter Tools - Backgrounders

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The following background information will change over time. If you need additional information, please check with our media relations staff.

Eligibility requirements

Many DHS programs have income or other criteria an applicant must meet to be eligible for the program.

• Oregon Health Plan eligibility. This page, geared to potential OHP applicants, offers an easy to read description of eligibility and how to apply.
• Eligibility for a number of DHS programs are based on the federal poverty level (FPL).

DHS data

Client, health, vital statistics, perfomance measurements. More >>

Communicable-disease reporting

One of the public-health roles of the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) is to help members of the public protect themselves from infectious disease. One means of doing this is through public-health reporting and follow-up.

Reporting authority: ORS 433.004 gives DHS the authority to designate specific diseases and conditions as "reportable" i.e., when physicians or laboratories diagnose them, they must report the diagnosis to public-health authorities. The latter investigate the diseases and take steps to prevent their spread.

An example is tuberculosis: The diagnosing physician reports the disease to the local health department, which ensures that the patient gets his or her medicines; and that close contacts are tested and, if necessary, given antibiotics to prevent them from contracting tuberculosis as well.

Personal privacy: Accompanying this authority to receive reports of diseases is the stipulation that public-health officials keep patient information confidential.

ORS 433.008 stipulates that we "shall not disclose the name or address of, or otherwise disclose the identity of, any person" whose disease is reported to us. This is important because it assures the public and medical community that if they report a disease to public-health officials, the individual will not be identified publicly. This encourages -disease reporting.

An exception to the confidentiality law would be a contagious individual who is recklessly exposing others to disease (ORS 433.008[2]).

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Reporting individual cases: About 10,000 disease reports are made to Oregon public-health authorities annually and, for the most part, there is no need to notify the public about individual cases. But DHS will alert the public of a specific case if the notification is important for people to take steps to protect their health.

For example, DHS typically announces the year's first documented influenza case. DHS would also announce cases of new diseases such as West Nile virus infection or SARS. However, ORS 433.008 forbids DHS from releasing information sufficient to identify the person whose illness was reported.

If DHS alerts the public to a specific reported case, DHS will attempt to provide information sufficient for Oregonians to protect themselves while at the same time withholding information that would allow others to identify the individual case. Typically we can release the person's gender, age and county of residence. However, DHS would not release that information if it could lead to identifying the individual.

Protecting individual identity: Consider: If the state reports that someone in Oregon died this week of a certain reportable disease, that narrows the field to about 575 Oregonians who die in an average week. If we say it was someone in his or her 20s, that narrows it still further. If we say it was a man in his 20s, we're much closer. Adding the county name may identify the individual. Our practice is to ask, "How many people fit the characteristics we have named?" If the number is fewer than 50, we're dangerously close to illegally identifying an individual.

Often, the bacterium that carries a communicable disease is not isolated to one region but can be found anywhere in the state. In such instances, the county where the diseased individual lived is inconsequential (although we would still release it if it didn't compromise the person's privacy).

In an instance where the individual's privacy would be violated, but it also is important for people in a particular area to be informed, we will ensure that affected people are notified by other means. For example, day-care contacts of children with hepatitis A would be notified directly by local public-health nurses.

Where a person dies of a contagious disease, public health will trace and contact individuals who had known contact with the person. If we were to make a public announcement, we would do so without identifying the individual's gender or age.

DHS' goal is to provide as much information as we legally can, balancing statutory privacy requirements with the public interest in preventing the spread of reportable disease.

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Also see: About the agency and DHS organization charts