Population-level administrative data—data on individuals’ interactions with administrative systems, such as health-care, social-welfare, criminal-justice, and education systems—are a fruitful resource for research into behavior, development, and well-being. However, administrative data are underutilized in psychological science. Here, we review advantages of population-level administrative data for psychological research and provide examples of advances in psychological theory arising from administrative data studies. We focus on advantages in three areas: the collection and recording of population-level administrative data, the data’s large scale, and unique data linkages. We also describe ethical issues as well as methodological considerations and limitations in population administrative data research and outline future directions to enable psychological scientists to more fully capitalize on administrative data resources.

中文翻译：

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人口层面的管理数据：推进心理科学的资源


人口层面的行政数据——关于个人与医疗保健、社会福利、刑事司法和教育系统等行政系统互动的数据——是研究行为、发展和福祉的丰富资源。然而，行政数据在心理科学中并未得到充分利用。在这里，我们回顾了人口层面的行政数据在心理学研究中的优势，并提供了行政数据研究带来的心理学理论进展的例子。我们重点关注三个方面的优势：人口级行政数据的收集和记录、数据规模大以及独特的数据链接。我们还描述了人口管理数据研究中的伦理问题以及方法论考虑因素和局限性，并概述了未来的方向，使心理科学家能够更充分地利用管理数据资源。