The primary purpose of substance use epidemiology is to determine the magnitude of the problem with a view towards establishing public health, research priorities,
and anticipating treatment needs.
One way to characterize the magnitude of substance problems in the United States is to estimate the annual prevalence of the use of each specific substance and its associated conditional probability of dependence, i.e., the percentage of 12-month users with 12-month dependence. Substance dependence reflects one of the most severe substance use problems, often indicating a need for treatment.
Substance-specific estimates of prevalence and conditional probability of dependence also illustrate each substance’s contribution to the overall number of Americans affected by substance dependence.
Data from the Wave 1 2001 to 2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (Grant et al., 2001) provide unique evidence of the contributions of various substances to the overall burden of substance dependence in the United States.
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