South West Public Health Observatory
	The impact of drug misuse on health in the South West, 1996-2001

Aims

Drug Action Teams, and the range of services associatedwith them, require good information to help planappropriate interventions to meet the growth of drugmisuse problems. Police, health, probation, social servicesand local authorities should have an accurate picture ofdrug misuse in their areas. Central and regional authoritiesneed a picture of how different areas compare and ofprevailing trends. This report brings together data from avariety of sources, in order to give a comprehensive view ofthe impact on health of drug misuse in the South Westregion. It is hoped this information will assist indemonstrating the scale of problems, the demand oncurrent services, and priorities for service development.

Theaims were as follows:

• To estimate the incidence and prevalence of problem drug misuse in the South West region and describe demographic changes for the past five years.

• To quantify the nature and scale of the impact of problem drug misuse, on the health of users, their families and the community. Specifically to examine drug-related deaths, infectious diseases and overdoses.

• To compare the scale and impact of problem drug misuse in the South West with the national picture and to provide comparative data for the different areas of the South West.

In the course of this work, data were sought concerninga wide range of drug misuse related issues. We have tried toprovide information on the sources of such data, to be ofassistance to others investigating this area. Links toappropriate web-sites have been provided where possible.We have also sought to identify gaps or difficulties inobtaining reliable information and make somerecommendations about how these might be improved.This report is concerned primarily with people withproblems associated with drug misuse, not those thatmay take drugs without experiencing problems.