Secondary Data for Policy Studies: Benefits and Challenges

Nurse clinicians, researchers, faculty, health service administrators, and consultants are increasingly involved in advocating public policy proposals to address health issues. One necessary tool for effective policy advocacy is a data-based analysis of the problem and recommended policy. Health policy research to inform the fast-paced, just-in-time policy-making process relies on existing government and nongovernmental data to maximize timeliness and credibility of results. Examples of recent reviews and studies using secondary analysis of public and industrial data are briefly described for further exploration. This overview of health policy research aims to foster more use of secondary data analysis studies to inform the policy-making process.