Guidelines for estimating the incidence of problem drug use

Monitoring the incidence of problem drug use — the rate at which people who will become problem users start using or injecting drugs for the first time — plays an important part in tracing new trends in Europe’s drug situation and in helping to shape interventions. These guidelines form part of the toolset developed under the EMCDDA’s problem drug use (PDU) key indicator and were developed by a working group of experts from several Member States. The document presents advanced statistical techniques for estimating the numbers of new cases of (future) problem drug use occurring over time, based on available data such as numbers of new drug treatment entries.