Objectives of HealthDCAT-AP

HealthDCAT-AP aims to standardise the minimum metadata elements and characteristics that health data holders are required to provide for describing their datasets, as specified under the EHDS Regulation. By doing so, it ensures that both non-sensitive and sensitive health data can be shared responsibly across the EU, enhancing the discoverability and usability of health data for secondary purposes, such as research, public health policy, and innovation.

HealthDCAT-AP extends the DCAT-AP framework by integrating additional health-specific metadata elements, properties, and guidelines tailored to the unique requirements of health data management and sharing. This extension addresses the specific challenges of managing, sharing, and discovering health-related datasets within the EHDS while ensuring compliance with EU data protection regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and EHDS Regulation. Additionally, HealthDCAT-AP remains fully compatible with the broader DCAT-AP framework used across multiple domains in the EU Data Spaces.