A Systematic Review: Evaluating Extant Data Sources for Potential Linkage

The National Children’s Study Vanguard Study was a pilot epidemiological cohort study of children and their parents. Measures were to be taken from pre-pregnancy until adulthood. The use of extant data was planned to supplement direct data collection from the respondents. Our paper outlines a strategy for cataloging and evaluating extant data sources for use with large scale longitudinal. Through our review we selected five evaluation factors to guide a researcher through available data sources including 1) relevance, 2) timeliness, 3) spatiality, 4) accessibility, and 5) accuracy.