A drug misuser prevalence study in a rural English district
Open Access
- 1 March 1998
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in European Journal of Public Health
- Vol. 8 (1) , 34-36
- https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/8.1.34
Abstract
A capture-recapture method was used to estimate the total prevalence of drug (opiates, amphetamines or cocaine) misusers in a rural English district. Unique identifying information on known misusers was obtained from four agencies, including general practitioners, in contact with them. Log-linear modelling produced a complex model, suggesting that the 518 known misusers represented 47% of the estimated true number, giving an estimated prevalence of 2.5 per 1,000 population (CL: 1.6–9.4). This method may not provide precise estimates of misuser population sizes and should be used in conjunction with other methods for estimating need.Keywords
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