Prevention Research and the National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program

Introduction. Primary data collection, including intervention research, has long been an important feature of prevention research.  However, the National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program (NAHDAP) makes available secondary data to support a range of research questions of interest to prevention researchers and other interested in HIV and substance abuse questions.  This poster and presentation will highlight the secondary data collections available from NAHDAP. 

Background/Methods. The data life cycle involves planning for a data collection, collecting the data, preparing data for analysis, data analysis, and data archiving.  Many researchers in the prevention research field do not archive data citing reasons such as protecting the confidentiality of human subjects and funding constraints. However, the National Institute on Drug Abuse established an archive at ICPSR at the University of Michigan to address these challenges.  NAHDAP has procedures for minimizing disclosure risk and provides resources and technical assistance to investigators wanting to archive their data. NAHDAP began archiving data in 2009. 

Results. Currently, data from 95 studies are available on the NAHDAP website.  NAHDAP focuses on fully enhancing and describing the data so that data are readily discoverable and usable.  Users can search for variables using variable search, download a bibliography of publications related to the data, perform online analysis, and readily cite the investigators who collected the data with a standard citation for the data.  Data where disclosure risk cannot be fully addressed are made available to users through a Restricted-Use Data Use Agreement (RUDUA). 

 Summary. NAHDAP has a wide range of data resources that can be used for secondary data analysis in the field of prevention research.  The ongoing investment NIDA is making in data sharing through NAHDAP allows users to access high value secondary data sets and also enables NAHDAP to work closely with investigators who want to archive their data.