Administrative Data Systems

6. Advantages and Disadvantages

Exercise 4

Below are several examples of how administrative data may be used. Please identify whether these uses are advantages or disadvantages.

The statements are:

• Clearly defined population
• Defines social characteristics of group
• Serves as function of geographic region
• Outcomes predefined by data
• Key cultural and/or personal information and information preferences, social importance omitted
• Data collected for a specific purpose
• Do not have response rate variation

Answers:
Clearly defined population
[Advantage] Principal advantage is that it gives you a defined population and no response bias. Everyone is represented. Removes cost (time and resources) to define population by other methods.

Defines social characteristics of group
[Advantage] Principal advantage is that although it may be limited information, it typically at least includes age and gender (known defined social characteristics). Race and ethnicity may be included and are often enumerated in generally agreed upon criteria. (i.e., the way in which we ask about race/ethnicity). A key limit for some data might be that the information is not exact –i.e., age, groups are provided rather than birthdates.

Serves as function of geographic region
[Advantage] Principal advantage is that you identify the individual in a geographic location. Sometimes you don’t have access to geographic location because of identifiably problems. But there may be surrogates (for instance, one may not know zip code, but may have other characteristics available). Raw administrative data will often have region in it (but with barrier on confidentiality).

Outcomes predefined by data
[Disadvantage] Principal disadvantage. Outcomes may not be related to the questions you are asking. One complication is that the outcome that is measured is not necessarily related to the conceptual or empirical question of interest. For instance, mortality may not be correlated to the ideas of morbidity that are being investigated

Key cultural and/or personal information and information preferences, social importance omitted
[Disadvantage] Principal disadvantage. Administrative data cannot be used to explain why people behave in certain ways. While big social groupings are available (age, sex, race etc) they cannot be interpreted regarding what they may mean for outcomes. It may require inferences about these demographic classifications.

Data collected for a specific purpose
[Disadvantage] Principal disadvantage. If the purpose of the data collection is not congruous with the purpose of the research, inherent bias may exist. For instance, if data are being collected for billing purposes, or for police reporting and mortality statistics, bias may be related to the context at the point of data collection. The primary purpose of the data collection will affect interpretation.

Do not have response rate variation
[Advantage] Principal advantage. The absolute rate is right. There is variation in rates in big social groups rather than having high response rates with missing denominators. There is a constant trade off between more depth or less representativeness.