secondary analysis

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secondary analysis Any further analysis of an existing data-set which presents interpretations, conclusions, or knowledge additional to, or different from, those presented in the first report on the data collection and its results. Some disciplines, such as economics and demography, rely almost entirely on data collected by others, especially official statistics. With improved access to microdata from major government surveys, sociologists are also using secondary analysis of such data to complement, or replace, analysis of new data-sets (see C. Hakim , Secondary Analysis in Social Research, 1982
).