Estimating the total burden of drug-related mortality

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction's key indicator on drug-related deaths collects information predominantly on drug-induced deaths (also described as poisonings or fatal overdoses). Increasingly, however, the EU Member States are supplementing this information with data from mortality studies of problem-drug-user cohorts that record all causes of death in these groups.

In 2007, the EMCDDA launched a project with Czech experts to analyse data availability and the methodological possibilities for estimating the overall mortality of problem drug users in the EU. The project, running till the end of the year, will culminate in a report that will provide the basis for possible work on this issue at EU level in the future.

• Primary Source

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction: Drugnet Europe: No.62, April-June, 2008 (pdf) http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/attachements.cfm/att_51689_EN_DrugnetEurope62_FinaforWEB.pdf

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