This letter is in reference to the ADA 2001 Survey of Dental Practice request that I received in May. I can understand the ADA wanting certain information about its members. My concern is not with that, but rather with the additional uses for which the survey information is likely to be applied.
Take ZIP codes, for example. A profile of all dentists living in a particular ZIP code can be established using the data from the survey. Lists are compiled and sold to anyone who would target dentists for their own purposes: telemarketers, insurance companies, government agencies, brokers, dental supply companies, real estate firms or anyone else for that matter.
All dentists living or practicing in that ZIP code, not just ADA dentists, could be included in the lists since it could be inferred that those dentists would have similar practices, incomes and so on.
The disclaimer that "no identifying information will be voluntarily released" is not reassuring. Could that statement mean, "If, for a fee, or if I twist your arm, you would release it"?
Individual responses have little value. It is the number of survey reports and the profiles that can be drawn from those responses that have value. Additionally, I find it unfair, or maybe even unethical, to use everyone’s dues to pay for the survey, then to have the gall to state that only those who send in their survey report will be offered a free report of the results.
I find that unacceptable and it deepens my suspicions about how the survey will be used—for a buck! If the survey is that important to the ADA, why would that information then be available to others for a fee and not kept confidential for the use of the ADA only?
