THE COMMUNITY EPIDEMIOLOGY WORK GROUP APPROACH

Abstract

“Drug abuse” provides many unique challenges to the research community. Some of these involve fundamental epidemiologic issues, such as measuring the extent of the problem, identifying and assessing changes in patterns and trends, detecting emerging “drugs of abuse”, characterizing vulnerable populations and determining health and social consequences. A number of research methods are employed to address these issues. This paper describes one of these—a model in which ongoing surveillance of “drug abuse” is maintained through a network of community-based researchers, local officials, academics, and other interested and qualified members of the community. Timely, accurate, and cost-effective data can be generated through systematic collection and analysis of indirect indicators of “drug abuse” that are often routinely produced by a variety of community sources. This information, in turn, can be used to make informed public health policy decisions. The community-based network model has been implemented at the city, state, national, regional, and international levels, and a case is made that this type of program could be useful, as well, in understanding the dynamics of “drug abuse” in rural areas of the country. [Translations are provided in the International Abstracts Section of this issue.]

• Drug misuse
• Community
• Epidemiology
• Networks
• Surveillance
• Vulnerable populations

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicholas J. Kozel

Nicholas J. Kozel, M.S., is an Associate Chief in the Epidemiology Research Branch in the Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he is responsible for epidemiologic program development and intergovernmental coordination, including liaison with international, national, State, and local governmental agencies. One of Mr. Kozel's major activities includes development of community-based drug abuse epidemiologic research networks, an area in which he is widely published. Mr. Kozel received training in epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and received graduate training in communication research and psychology at Boston University and George Washington University. Prior to joining NIDA in 1975, Mr. Kozel worked in the Executive Office of the President, Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, and was on the research staff of the Narcotics Treatment Administration and the Department of Corrections in the District of Columbia and in the Research Division of the United States Information Agency.

Elizabeth B. Robertson

Elizabeth Robertson, Ph.D., is the Branch Chief of the Prevention Research Branch in the Division of Epidemiology Services, and Prevention Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse. Her graduate degrees are in Human Development and Family Studies, and she completed a three-year NIMH-sponsored post-doctoral fellowship with the Carolina Consortium on Human Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her portfolio of grants at NIDA includes research projects that examine the efficacy and effectiveness of universal, selective, and indicated prevention interventions for families. In addition, she has a research emphasis on the epidemiology and etiology of substance abuse problems in rural and frontier areas of America. Her publications examine the utilization of drug abuse services and the influences of environmental and family factors on child development and family relations.

Carol L. Falkowski

Carol L. Falkowski is the senior research analyst at the Butler Center for Research and Learning at the Hazelden Foundation. Falkowski has been a member of the Community Epidemiology Work Group of the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1986, representing the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. She established the Minnesota State Epidemiology Work Group in 1988. Now known as the Substance Abuse Research Forum, it is convened twice annually by Hazelden. Falkowski also serves as a consultant on drug-abuse-related matters to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Hazelden, founded in 1949, is an internationally known non-profit organization that provides a full range of recovery services and educational materials related to alcohol and drug dependency, with campuses in Plymouth and Center City, Minnesota, Chicago, New York City, and West Palm Beach.