DESCRIPTION
Through a handful of case studies, we explore some of the benefits and drawbacks of leveraging existing and secondary data in pragmatic research. Existing/secondary data present an important resource which can be used at many points in the lifecycle of pragmatic research including for planning and trial design, participant recruitment, endpoint ascertainment, calibration of treatment effects, among others. However, we argue that existing/secondary data should be interrogated for not only what it includes but also what it systematically does not capture. When possible, the limitations of existing/secondary data should be ameliorated in the design and analysis plan. Finally, we argue that many perceived weaknesses of existing and secondary data such as patient heterogeneity, measurement error of covariates, etc. should be reframed as strengths for pragmatic research.
PRESENTER(S)
