Resumen de Estimating the prevalence of problematic drug use: a review of methods and their application

M. Hickman, C. Taylor, A. Chatterjee, L. Degenhardt, Martin Frisher, G. Hay, K. Tilling, Lambert Wiesing, P. Griffiths, R. McKetin

• Policy makers increasingly need estimates of the prevalence of problematic drug use, such as injecting and the use of “crack”. In the present article, the authors review indirect methods of estimating the prevalence of problematic drug use. Those methods utilize existing data on a sample of problematic drug users as “raw” material and then “indirectly” estimate the proportion of the total number of problematic drug users sampled in the raw material; that is, the methods estimate the sampling intensity of the raw data. That analogy is used to explain a number of indirect estimation techniques, focusing on capture-recapture and multiplier methods, the methods most often used in settings in developing countries. Assumptions underpinning indirect estimation techniques are presented, together with examples of their application. In addition, there is a discussion of the need to develop routine data sources that can be used in indirect prevalence estimation procedures.