National Surveillance System for Alcohol and Other Drug-Misuse and Overdose: January to June 2018 Data

Alcohol and other drug (AOD) misuse and overdose represent significant public health issues that impact on individuals, communities, service providers and government. Robust surveillance of AOD misuse and overdose is a priority area of need in terms of an evidence base regarding trends and emerging patterns of harms at a population level. The National Surveillance System for Alcohol and Drug Misuse and Overdose, funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health, provides timely and robust information regarding acute harms associated with AOD misuse and overdose in Australia. This monitoring project utilises data derived from in-depth ambulance service records to examine misuse and overdose of heroin, alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs and other illicit substances. Importantly, this project provides consistent, detailed and timely data on harms associated with AOD use, not captured by other data systems. This national system was built on an ongoing project developed in Victoria, with project data informing policy responses and interventions that target AOD use, with numerous reports for local government (e.g. Paul et al, 2014; Heilbronn and Matthews, 2011), state government (e.g. Lloyd et al, 2016; Heilbronn et al, 2016) and other stakeholders (e.g. Pennay et al, 2014; Cogger, Dietze, & Lloyd, 2016) as well as peer-reviewed journal publications (e.g. Kaar et al, 2016; Arunogiri et al, 2016; Lloyd & McElwee, 2011). This is data report presents AOD-related ambulance attendances in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), New South Wales (NSW), Northern Territory (NT), Queensland (not available), Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia (WA) from January to June 2018.