TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2022//
TI  - What is the prevalence of drug use in the general population? Simulating underreported and unknown use for more accurate national estimates
JO  - Annals of epidemiology
A1  - Levy, Natalie S.
A1  - Palamar, Joseph J.
A1  - Mooney, Stephen J.
A1  - Cleland, Charles M.
A1  - Keyes, Katherine M.
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - 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 "true" 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 "true" 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 "true" 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 1047-2797
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2021.12.013
ID  - ref1
ER  -