[philman_36]

And a couple of more little factoids...
These revisions to estimates published previously are the result of a major change in the underlying method by which drugs are coded and classified in DAWN. DAWN relies on a detailed "drug vocabulary" to categorize the thousands of substances that are reported each year. The drug vocabulary is, literally, the language— the codes and terminology— that DAWN uses to record and classify drugs and other substances collected from EDs. It was necessary to implement substantial changes to the existing vocabulary to ensure that reported substances are accurately and consistently classified. The overhaul and replacement of the DAWN drug vocabulary as well as the first publication of the revised trends are described in detail in Emergency Department Trends From the Drug Abuse Warning Network Preliminary Estimates January – June 2001 with Revised Estimates 1994 – 2000. 5 In addition, a separate methodology publication focusing exclusively on the drug vocabulary is forthcoming.

Snip...In 2001, the DAWN sample consisted of 564 eligible hospitals. Of these, 458 (81%) participated in DAWN. Response rates in the 21 metropolitan areas ranged from 58 percent to 100 percent, with only 2 metropolitan areas having response rates below 75 percent (Table 1.1). The 2001 sample of hospitals submitted data on 196,268 drug abuse episodes with an average of 1.8 drug mentions per episode (Table 1.3).

Snip...The DAWN reporter submits an episode report to the DAWN system for each patient who visits a DAWN ED and meets certain criteria. To be included in DAWN, the patient presenting to the ED must meet all of the following criteria:
The patient was age 6 to 97;
The patient was treated in the hospital's ED;
The patient's presenting problem( s) (i. e., the reason for the ED visit) was induced by or related to drug use, regardless of when the drug use occurred;
The episode involved the use of an illegal drug or the use of a legal drug or other chemical substance for nonmedical purposes; and
The patient's reason for using the substance( s) was dependence, suicide attempt or gesture, and/ or psychic effects.

Don't you just love "representative sampling"!

[philman_36]

DAWN
Snip...Tabulations based on the new drug vocabulary were introduced with the publication of emergency department estimates for calendar year 2001. (The publication, Mortality Data from DAWN, uses the same underlying drug vocabulary, but displays its data in formats specifically designed for that component.) The standard tables now used in DAWN ED publications are designed to achieve 5 goals:
1. Highlight Illicit Drugs of Special Interest
Snip...subset of 1...the most common illicit drugs (e.g., cocaine, heroin, marijuana),

Are you beginning to get the picture?

And get this too...http://www.dawninfo.net/pdf/EDtrends.pdf#AppendixA
There are some real doozies in there. Like this...
This issue of ED Trends from DAWN presents for the first time preliminary estimates for January to June of 2001, with comparisons to the same months of 2000. In addition, this publication introduces recent changes in the way DAWN codes and classifies drugs; and it addresses the impact of these changes on estimates published previously for 1994 to 2000.

And this...From January to June 2001, DAWN estimates that there were 308,368 drug-related ED episodes in the coterminous U. S. with 559,334 drug mentions ( Table 2.1.0) . Both ED drug episodes and ED drug mentions were statistically unchanged, based on comparisons of the first half of 2000 and the first half of 2001.
Comparing preliminary estimates for the first half of 2000 and the first half of 2001 for the 21 metropolitan areas oversampled in DAWN ( Table 3.1) : Increases in drug episodes were evident only for Minneapolis ( 18% ) , Boston ( 10% ) , and Baltimore ( 9% ) . Decreases in drug episodes occurred in San Francisco ( -12% ) and Dallas ( -8% ) .

And this...Alcohol use is reported to DAWN only (emphasis in original, not mine) when consumed in combination with a reportable substance.
And this...The DAWN estimates for 2001 are the first to utilize population data from the 2000 decennial Census.
And this, which to me is the piece de resistance...The number of ED episodes reported to DAWN is not equivalent to the number of individual patients, because one person may make repeated visits to an ED. DAWN data contain no individual identifiers, which would be required to estimate repeat visits. Therefore, the estimates presented in this publication pertain to total ED episodes or drug mentions, not to the number of different patients involved.

There is a lot more in there too. Do not play poker with the .gov, they keep changing the rules of the game.