Estimating Heroin Use in an Urban Area

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot project was to develop a verifiable method of empirically estimating heroin usage in a defined geographic area. If such a methodology could be constructed, appropriate officials could employ the procedure to promote planning, prevention, and education projects, and to evaluate on-going programs. Thus, should such a technique be developed, it could replace more traditional and empirically unconfirmed methods.

Employing data furnished by local law-enforcement, social, and medical agencies, a questionnaire was developed, pretested, and applied to a selected sample of the stipulated population. Cluster sampling was the specific statistical method utilized. Based on this methodology, estimates of heroin use were derived for the population.

Given the constraints of the study, if appears that this technique has the potential of providing the methodology for estimating the extent of heroin use in a given geographic area.