The role of rapid assessment methods in drug use epidemiology

“Rapid assessment ” methods have the potential to generate important public health information that can be used with monitoring, surveillance and other available data systems to develop intervention programmes. That potential is now the subject of discussion within the field of substance use. First emerging in the early 1990s, the last three years have seen the approach endorsed as an expedient method for profiling drug-related problems, mobilizing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention efforts, initiating policy change and service reorientation and, more recently, as a potential component of “second-generation ” surveillance. In the pres-ent article, the authors consider the role of rapid assessment in generating knowledge for public health action and, more specifically, the relationship between rapid approaches and the cornerstone of public health science, epidemiology. Drawing on case studies and examples, the authors propose that rapid assessment is best under-stood not as a new method, but as a practical convergence of existing research and intervention traditions (including field epidemiology and anthropology). Six roles for rapid assessment in either informing or complementing drug use epidemiology are outlined: (a) in information poor situations; (b) as a means of informing ongoing monitoring; (c) optimizing community involvement; (d) informing quantitative research; (e) questioning quantitative research; and (f) as a tool for responding to emerging health problems