A new survey, available in most European languages including Maltese, will gather information on how patterns of drug use, access to health services and the drug market may have changed in Europe during the pandemic. This, in turn, will feed into a monthly European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction trendspotter bulletin and a new repository of resources on COVID-19, launched in March on the agency’s website.
The survey findings will contribute to the emerging knowledge base on COVID-19 and Europe’s response to it, potentially helping to protect the health of people who use drugs, improve drug services and raise awareness of market changes.
The European Web Survey on Drugs is one of the EMCDDA’s targeted ‘leading-edge’ monitoring methods, designed to improve understanding of patterns of drug use at European level (see Figure). The aim of the project was to test a web survey tool that could collect information quickly and cheaply on topics currently not covered by routine data collection.
Targeted at people aged over 18 who have used drugs, the new questionnaire is structured in modules on: socio-demographics; COVID-19 status; drug using patterns (last 30 days, last year); access to services and drug market activity (e.g. changes in the way illicit drugs have been obtained during COVID-19).
The voluntary and anonymous survey is currently being promoted at national level by the participating Reitox national focal points, supported by other national partners. A special focus is given to promoting the survey through targeted social media advertisements.
While web surveys are not representative of the general population, when carefully conducted and combined with traditional data-collection methods, they can help paint a more comprehensive, realistic and timely picture of drug use and drug markets in Europe. As such they are a key ingredient in the EMCDDA’s responsiveness to an ever-shifting drug problem.
The survey in Maltese is available here. For English and other languages, read more on the Agency’s website.
