Anticipating Community Drug Problems in Washington, DC, and Portland, Oregon, 1984-1990 (ICPSR 9924)

Time Period(s)

1984 -- 1990

Data Collection Notes

Part 1 has eleven 132-character records per case, and Part 2 has two 132-character records per case. Data contain explicit decimals.

Study Purpose

The goal of the study was to extend the use of arrestee urinalysis results in community planning by examining the relationships among arrestee drug tests and drug-related emergency room episodes, drug overdose deaths, crimes, and child abuse and neglect cases. The conceptual framework that was developed addressed the issue of temporal relationships among indicators by considering how the diffusion of new patterns of drug abuse and the course of individual drug careers would cumulatively affect different indicators. This required an elaboration of assumptions about how drug abuse spreads, its effects on individuals over time, and the resulting cumulative effects on the community over time. The product was a three-stage public health model of drug diffusion and the influence drug diffusion might be expected to have on various community drug indicators when they are viewed as aggregate measures of individual drug use careers. Stage 1 of the model is the initiation of a new drug use pattern, Stage 2 is spreading drug use, and Stage 3 is drug use stabilization or decline.

Study Design

Selection of study sites and community indicators were determined by data availability. The first criterion was monthly data on results of urinalysis of arrestees at booking, available for almost all detained arrestees in Washington, DC, since April 1984. The additional data on drug-related emergency room episodes, drug overdose deaths, reported crimes, and reported cases of child abuse and neglect formed the basis for initial model testing. To examine the extent to which Washington, DC, might generalize to other communities, Portland, Oregon, was chosen as a comparison site with similar initial booking tests of arrestees on a continuous monthly basis and community indicators similar to those available in Washington, DC. Emergency room episode data comparable to that in Washington, DC, was not available for Portland.

Universe

Washington, DC: All drug-use arrestees, drug-related emergency room episodes, drug overdose deaths, violent and property crimes, and child abuse and neglect cases. Portland, Oregon: All drug-use arrestees, drug overdose deaths, violent and property crimes, and child neglect, abuse, and endangerment cases.

Unit(s) of Observation

Months (Washington, DC: 78 cases/April 1984-September 1990. Portland, Oregon: 33 cases/January 1988-September 1990).

Data Source

agency files from Washington, DC, and Multnomah County, Portland, and Gresham, Oregon

administrative records data

Description of Variables

Part 1 data (Washington, DC) were broken into five sections: Arrestee Drug Test Results (cocaine, opiates, methadone, amphetamines, and PCP), Drug-Related Emergency Room Episodes, Drug Overdose Deaths, Crimes Reported (violent crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, and assault, and property crimes, including burglary, larceny, auto theft, and arson), and Child Maltreatment (abuse, neglect, and other). Part 2 data (Portland, OR) consisted of the same sections with the exception of Drug-Related Emergency Room Episodes.

Response Rates

Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales

None

Original Release Date

1993-10-02

Version Date

1994-02-17

Version History

1993-10-02 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

• Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.