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Cross Cutting : Substance Abuse
 
The role of substance abuse in adverse health outcomes is a recognized problem. The Substance Abuse Subcommittee was developed to concentrate CSTE’s efforts to comprehensively address state and local public health needs and interest in the epidemiology and surveillance of alcohol and drug abuse. Current activities focus on assessing and building epidemiologic capacity in drug overdose fatalities, the development and enhancement of relevant indicators for surveillance, and assessing substance abuse epidemiologic capacity in states. CSTE has several related subcommittees focused on different activities within following subcommittees:
CSTE position statements (Increase Funding and support for Alcohol Epidemiology Activities (2005) and State-Level Substance Abuse Epidemiology Capacity (2008)) from several national meetings supported the effort to address the epidemiology of substance abuse at the state and local levels. Substance abuse was mentioned in several CSTE Position Statements related to HIV or other blood-borne pathogens: the role of MEs and coroners in public health (1993); and the collection of risk-factor data in schools (2000). It was also named as a reason for improved epidemiology infrastructure in state health departments (1990). In 1998, the Chronic Disease Workgroup proposed adding alcohol use and alcohol-related conditions to the national surveillance system and in 2000 the Injury Workgroup proposed adding poisoning cases to the system, one of the rationales being an increase in drug-related poisoning deaths.
 
For more information about the Substance Abuse Subcommittees and their activities, please contact Annie Tran. Click here to view other Cross Cutting Steering Committee activities.
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