Evidence-Based Prevention Interventions for People Who Use Illicit Drugs

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The World Drug Report of 2012 [1] reports that, globally, illicit drug use is a common occurrence and is a growing health problem in some regions. Global reporting estimates indicate that approximately 230 million people or 5% of the global adult population have used illicit drugs. While somewhat stable use is ongoing in developed countries, resource-limited settings are seeing the growth and emergency of an illicit drug use as a new and significant national health issue. Heroin, cocaine, and other commonly used illicit drugs are particularly destructive to individual livelihoods, families, and neighborhoods with high social impact and increased morbidity and mortality related to the adverse health consequences of their use [2]. These adverse health consequences include addiction, overdose, violence, mental health disorders, suicide, and infectious complications such as HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C [2–4].