Employee Privacy Protection Statement

Cornell, Columbia, Yale & CTQS Research Partnership

We are deeply committed to protecting the privacy of all employee participants. Below is a summary of our safeguards and procedures:

IRB Oversight

The study protocol, consent form, and all procedures are reviewed and approved by an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB) to ensure compliance with the highest ethical and legal standards in human subjects research.

HIPAA Compliance

All data collection, storage, and reporting follow HIPAA standards to protect health-related information and privacy.

What Kind of Data Will Be Collected?

Participants complete brief, validated questionnaires on:

  • Back pain symptoms and severity — measured by the Brief Pain Inventory–Short Form (BPI-4).

  • Daily function and quality of life — measured by the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and the EuroQol-5D-5L (EQ-5D-5L).

  • Healthcare use — visits to doctors or therapists, imaging tests, procedures, medications, and hospital or emergency-room visits — measured by the Resource Use Questionnaire (RUQ).

  • Work and daily activity impact — hours missed from work and reduced productivity — measured by the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment questionnaire (WPAI-SHP).

  • Optional: Submission of de-identified medical bills or insurance statements for analysis — any identifying information (e.g., name, DOB, ID number) will be removed by the participant before submission.

We do not request or access any participant medical records or employer-held data.

Screening & Enrollment

Screening is conducted directly by the research team — not by the employer. Participants may provide either a personal or a work email address—whichever they prefer. For employer-partner recruitment, organizational affiliation will be confirmed privately by having participants self-select their employer from a short list. Employers will not know which individuals enroll in the study. Employers will not know which individuals enroll in the study.

Data Storage

All data will be securely stored at Cornell Medical Center. In limited cases, if data is handled by the nonprofit Center for Taiji & Qigong Studies (CTQS), HIPAA-compliant protections still apply.

Confidentiality & Reporting

  • All individual responses are kept confidential and de-identified

  • We will not send or communicate any individual employee names or other personally identifying information to the participant’s employer.

  • We may share the total number of enrolled employees per organization (if requested), but never personal identity information.

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