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What Is Drug Abuse Warning Network?

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Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a health surveillance program targeting patients from medical examiners, those in hospitals. The program also utilizes samples obtained from the victims who have died and taken to the mortuaries (Maxfield & Babbie, 2017). The information, in form of data, is gathered from individuals who report to the hospitals due to drug ingestions or those who have been injured or killed, in which drug intoxication was a contributor. The study population was 380,000 episodes of drug abuse that was gathered from sampling frame of patients from 242 hospitals which were sampled from 66 metropolitan areas. Collectively, the participating hospitals surrender information to the Drug Abuse Warning Network for analysis. …show more content…

Correspondingly, victimization surveys utilize specialized software, which not only expands use of this surveying technique but improve quality for analyzing local crime. Self-reporting crimes are the best survey for measuring crime that does not have recognized victims. Similarly, self-reporting surveys is significant for providing data regarding discrete crimes such as shoplifting, which can also be associated with drugs abuse. According to Maxfield & Babbie (2017), local surveys are advantageous and efficient in that they can be conducted by the local government, community organizations, police department and other researchers. Besides, local crime surveys constitute valuable tool for citizens, public officials and many communities. UCR, SHR, NCVS provide the best counts for crime or murder cases especially if the victim was doing business or had commercial establishment. Information from NCVS, an acknowledged national survey, is highly reliable because it contains information regarding assaults as well as the information that has not been reported to the police (Maxfield & Babbie, 2017). According to (Maxfield & Babbie (2017), While NCVS survey is reliable for providing data regarding assaults and unreported cases, it is not useful in estimating victimization cases in states and cities

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