Many methods commonly used in studying morbidity, such as hospital admissions and health surveys, are unsuitable in estimating the incidence of addiction. Some methods of studying addiction rates are:
1. Mortality studies.
2. Case-finding studies; e.g. enquiries to law-enforcement, medical and social agencies.
3. Contact analysis; patients may be asked to name other cases of addiction, observation of dealer-buyer contacts, etc.
4. Registers of addicts.
5. Questionnaires and/or structured interviews with students, soldiers, etc.
6. Analyses of prescriptions.
7. Import and manufacture of drugs; drug offences; convictions in drug cases; seizures and prices of black market drugs and a miscellaneous category of other approaches.
The most ambitious estimations are based on an integration of information from several sources.
A study is presented based on an examination of arms for injection marks in a continuous flow of a high risk population (arrestees in Stockholm since 1965).
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