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Background
Research does not always involve collection of data from the participants. There is huge amount of data that is being collected through the routine management information system and other sur-veys or research activities. The existing data can be analyzed to generate new hypothesis or answer critical research questions. This saves lots of time, money and other resources. Also data from large sample surveys may be of higher quality and representative of the population. It avoids repeti-tion of research & wastage of resources by de-tailed exploration of existing research data and also ensures that sensitive topics or hard to reach populations are not over researched (1). However, there are certain ethical issues pertaining to secondary data analysis which should be taken care of before handling such data.
Secondary data analysis
Secondary analysis refers to the use of existing research data to find answer to a question that was different from the original work (2). Secondary data can be large scale surveys or data collected as part of personal research. Although there is gen-eral agreement about sharing the results of large scale surveys, but little agreement exists about the second. While the fundamental ethical issues re-lated to secondary use of research data remain the same, they have become more pressing with the advent of new technologies. Data sharing, compil-ing and storage have become much faster and eas-ier. At the same time, there are fresh concerns about data confidentiality and security.
Issues in Secondary data analysis
Concerns about secondary...