5. a. The department shall maintain a central database which shall include a record of all lead screening conducted pursuant to this act. The database shall include the name, age and address of the child screened and any other demographic data the department deems necessary. The database shall be geographically indexed, by municipality, in order to determine the location of areas of relatively high incidence of lead poisoning.

b. The information reported to and compiled by the department pursuant to this act is to be used only by the department and such other agencies as may be designated by the commissioner and shall not otherwise be divulged or made public so as to disclose the identity of any child to whom it relates without written parental consent; and to that end, the information shall not be included under materials available to public inspection pursuant to P.L.1963, c.73 (C. 47:1A-1 et seq.). The department may, however, make such statistical reports available using information compiled from the database if the name or other identifying information of the child screened is not revealed and in accordance with all other federal and State laws regarding the protection of medical information.

L.1995, c.328, s.5; amended 2021, c.182, s.5.