Making sure your information is kept private is important to us. You may visit the 3Gs study website without providing any personal information. If you chose to participate in the study, your identifying information will be kept confidential by study staff using federal privacy guidelines for research studies.

No names or addresses will appear on the questionnaires. Each study participant will be assigned a study identification number and only this ID number will be used on study materials. The DNA, blood, urine and saliva samples will also be coded with ID numbers and no names will appear on the tubes. All study documents will be stored in locked file cabinets in restricted-access areas. Data files will be created for statistical analyses and all information will be identified by study ID number only. When we publish study results, only statistical summaries will be presented and study participants will never be identified by name.

You can contact the Public Affairs office at The Public Health Institute at (510) 285-5500 or the Public Affairs office at the California Breast Cancer Research Program at (510) 987-9884.

The information you provide will be pooled with information provided by other participants to identify risk factors and potential causes of breast cancer and other diseases that affect women's health. To study breast cancer for example, the data from women with breast cancer will be compared to that from women who do not have breast cancer. This will help us understand how the two groups are different and begin to establish potential risk factors for breast cancer.

Research conducted by the CHDS and the 3Gs study are carefully reviewed and monitored by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Public Health Institute (PHI) whose primary responsibility is to protect study subjects, assure subject safety and ethical treatment, uphold the strictest standards of confidentiality and provide guidance to researchers regarding contact with study subjects. The PHI IRB will review the study plan to identify issues of concern and will work with the study researchers to make needed improvements.

Information that you provide to the 3Gs study will NOT be shared with your employer, your insurance company or anyone else. Your information is strictly protected by confidentiality rules. Your information will be used for the purposes of research only. Information is only shared between the data collection agencies and the 3Gs staff. You may disclose your participation in the 3Gs study to others if you choose but the study will never release any information you provide either about your participation or your study results.

All unused biological samples will be stored at the Children's Environmental Health Laboratory and the School of Public Health Biorepository at the University of California, Berkeley with only your assigned study number. No names or identifying information will be stored at the same location.

To help keep information about you confidential, the research team has obtained a Certificate of Confidentiality from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). This certificate adds special protection for research information about you. It will allow researchers to resist demands, such as those from a court order or subpoena, to release information that could identify you.