Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How Data Security Concerns Can Hinder Natural Experiment Research: Background And Potential Solutions, Michael F. Pesko

ECON Publications

Health economists conducting cancer-related research often use geocoded data to analyze natural experiments generated by policy changes. These natural experiments can provide causal interpretation under certain conditions. Despite public health benefit of this rigorous natural experiment methodology, data providers are often reluctant to provide geocoded data due to confidentiality concerns. In this paper, I provide an example of the value of natural experiments from e-cigarette research and show how this research was hindered by security concerns. While the tension between data access and security will not be resolved overnight, I offer two recommendations: 1) provide public access to aggregated data …