DAWN is a public health surveillance system that continuously monitors hospital drug-related ED visits. All types of drugs (licit and illicit) are covered, including all alcohol involvement for patients under 21, and alcohol involvement in combination with other substances for those 21 and older. DAWN estimates are based on a national sample of general, non-Federal hospitals, with oversampling of hospitals in selected metropolitan areas. Variables in DAWN provide details on the ED visit, including type of case, case disposition, drug involvement, route of administration, and the number of unique drugs reported.

A DAWN summary report (Highlights of the 2011 Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) Findings on Drug-Related Emergency Department Visits) is available from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The 2004 through 2010 DAWN ED public-use data and documentation files are also available on the SAMHDA Web site for download and online analysis.

• The variable POVPER (poverty level (% of US Census Poverty Threshold)) has been added to the:

• 2006 to 2007 and 2008 to 2009 periods in the NSDUH: 2-Year R-DAS (2002 to 2003, 2004 to 2005, 2006 to 2007, 2008 to 2009, and 2010 to 2011); and

• 2006 to 2009 period in the NSDUH: 4-Year R-DAS (2002 to 2005 and 2006 to 2009).

• FIREGION (FI Region within State), SSREGION (State Sampling Region within State), and RDASID (R-DAS Respondent Identification) variables have been removed from the NSDUH R-DAS data files.

There were no changes to the total number of records or to the other variables in the 2-Year, 4-Year, and 8-Year R-DAS data files. All three files are available for online analysis using the Restricted-use Data Analysis System (R-DAS).