@article{ref1,
title="What is the prevalence of drug use in the general population? Simulating underreported and unknown use for more accurate national estimates",
journal="Annals of epidemiology",
year="2022",
author="Levy, Natalie S. and Palamar, Joseph J. and Mooney, Stephen J. and Cleland, Charles M. and Keyes, Katherine M.",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="PURPOSE: To outline a method for obtaining more accurate estimates of drug use in the United States (US) general population by correcting survey data for underreported and unknown drug use. <br><br>METHODS: We simulated a population (n=100,000) reflecting the demographics of the US adult population per the 2018 American Community Survey. Within this population, we simulated the &quot;true&quot; and self-reported prevalence of past-month cannabis and cocaine use by using available estimates of underreporting. We applied our algorithm to samples of the simulated population to correct self-reported estimates and recover the &quot;true&quot; population prevalence, validating our approach. We applied this same method to 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health data to produce a range of underreporting-corrected estimates. <br><br>RESULTS: Simulated self-report sensitivities varied by drug and sampling method (cannabis: 77.6-78.5%, cocaine: 14.3-22.1%). Across repeated samples, mean corrected prevalences (calculated by dividing self-reported prevalence by estimated sensitivity) closely approximated simulated &quot;true&quot; prevalences. Applying our algorithm substantially increased 2018 NSDUH estimates (self-report: cannabis=10.5%, cocaine=0.8%; corrected: cannabis=15.6-16.6%, cocaine=2.7-5.5%). <br><br>CONCLUSION: National drug use prevalence estimates can be corrected for underreporting using a simple method. However, valid application of this method requires accurate data on the extent and correlates of misclassification in the general US population.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1047-2797",
doi="10.1016/j.annepidem.2021.12.013",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2021.12.013"
}