Assessing the public health impact of problem gambling through linkage of primary and secondary data sources

Primary data collection can be expensive and the data generated for individual projects is often narrowly focused. In contrast, administrative data such as medical claims, birth, and death records can be voluminous but not tailored for research since it is collected and managed by government agencies for practical purposes. However, records of hospitalizations, deaths by suicide, incarceration, or treatment for substance use disorder have enormous public health importance and can provide deep context to the primary data collected for research. Massachusetts has been at the forefront of using administrative data for public health research. Initially, this effort was part of the state’s response to the opioid crisis but has since expanded include other public health priorities. In parallel, the statutes establishing Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) mandated a public health view of the impact of introducing casino gaming into the state. These parallel efforts are merging so player and survey data from MGC funded research can be linked at the individual level to the Massachusetts Public Health Data warehouse (PHD) with more than 20 data sets. PHD offers remote researcher access to its data. This resource offers an unprecedented, longitudinal, census level view of the public health impacts of gambling behavior