Problem drug use declining in previous hot spots
December 2006Research led by the National Drug Evidence Centre in the School of Medicine has found that drug misuse seems to have passed its peak in some previous problem areas.
Tim Millar investigated the reality of the situation in perceived drug trouble-spots by estimating trends in the ‘incidence’ of heroin use (i.e. the number of people starting to use heroin). These indicated geographical differences and suggested that problem drug use (PDU) is declining in some areas considered hot spots in the 1980s.
The study looked at almost 15,000 local heroin users who sought treatment between 1986 and 2000, using a new approach which takes account of the time-lag between people starting to use heroin and seeking help. It focused on the City of Manchester, Stockport and Wigan, which showed the clearest patterns in the ‘prevalence’ estimates (the number of cases in a population at a given time) produced using the traditional approach.
Prevalence estimates for Wigan progressively declined with age, indicating a younger PDU population than the other areas and that young people must have recently been recruited at a faster rate than previously. This suggested that that incidence rates would have recently increased, and the estimates the team produced using the new method supported this.
By contrast, prevalence estimates for the City of Manchester indicated an older PDU population, prompting the team to think incidence might be in decline, and their incidence-rate estimates corroborated this. In Stockport, the prevalence estimates showed less difference between age-groups, suggesting incidence had remained stable, and again this was backed-up by the team’s incidence-rate estimates.
Tim said: “Our theory that the areas would exhibit different patterns of recent incidence trends - with some places having ‘passed their peak’ whilst rates of use continue to rise in others - was borne out using this new approach, which has proven capable of providing valuable indications which may help us to forecast future developments. Of course, Manchester and other 1980s hot spots continue to experience high levels of problem drug use, but it appears that the situation could have stopped getting worse and may be starting to get better.”
