General Population Surveys

The survey is conducted on a rolling basis with monthly quotas in each jurisdiction. Each province has a quota of 1000 respondents per year, with the possibility of adding additional sample size where provincial governments contribute additional funds. In addition, provinces are given the opportunity to fund larger local samples. This survey focuses on alcohol and cannabis, while also assessing lifetime as well as past year/current prevalence rates of "other illicit substances". Tobacco also is assessed as an associated variable but not to make prevalence statements. For alcohol, quantity and frequency are assessed, as well as indicators of frequency and intensity of heavy drinking occasions. For cannabis, current frequency are assessed. In addition, it has been agreed that CADUMS will assess indicators of prescription drug abuse, which so far have not been measured in Canada. As part of the BC AOD Monitoring System, efforts have been made to improve the consistency of data between different provincial school drug use surveys which presents one significant opportunity for improved monitoring in Canada.

The BC AOD Monitoring System team was represented on the technical advisory committee for CADUMS which facilitated efforts to create more consistent types of questions between the survey, provincial school surveys, and surveys of high-risk populations. A proposal for a discrete set of questions focusing on substance use the day before the interview was put before the national group and was accepted. This is based on the Australian experience with the Yesterday method for assessing alcohol consumption in their National Drug Strategy Household Surveys (Stockwell et al., 2007). A brief version of the Australian instrument will be piloted within an ongoing Ontario telephone monitoring survey. Population level estimates of typical drinking patterns can be made from the Yesterday method so long as interviews are conducted on both weekends and weekdays. Clearly this method does not generate estimates of more enduring individual drinking patterns, but they can provide a clear picture of a typical daily (weekday and weekend) pattern of alcohol, and potentially other substance, use.

• The BC AOD Monitoring project contributed items to the survey and collaborated to ensure consistency of drug terms with our other population surveys here in BC.
• The BC Ministry of Health contributed additional funding to ensure an over sample of BC resulting in a total of 4,000 cases of the province compared with 1,104 for most other provinces.
• We hope that local analyses comparing BC health authorities will be possible and local researchers are encouraged to make use of the data.
• We note that response rates were low and that this is an increasing problem with telephone surveys. It's important to look at multiple sources of information when examining trends in alcohol and drug use - hence the importance of and reason for the BC AOD Monitoring project.

CADUMS 2008 Data Set

As part of Statistics Canada's data liberation initiative (DLI), direct access to the 2008 CADUMS data set is now available via designated contacts for researchers at BC institutions.

• Researchers
• Educators
• Students
• Other staff members

DLI data may be used for:

• Teaching
• Academic research
• Publishing articles and reports
• Planning of educational services

*If your institution is not part of the DLI, contact the nearest Statistics Canada Regional Office to find out how you may obtain these data.

Analysis of BC versus Canada CADUMS data was conducted by Cindy Hardy and Sherry Bellamy of the University of Northern British Columbia.

Dr. Cindy Hardy is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in the faculty of University of Northern BC. Dr. Hardy's interests are in child and adolescent clinical psychology, and human development.

Sherry Bellamy is a graduate student in the department of Community Health Science at the University of Northern BC.

Analysis for the 2008-09 CADUMS report was conducted by Jinhui Zhao and Gina Martin of CARBC

Jinhui Zhao received his PhD from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. He is now working as scientist at the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia, University of Victoria. His expertise and research interests include epidemiology of substance use and epidemiological methods, application of statistical model in population health and intervention research, tobacco and alcohol use and cancer, alcohol impaired driving and traffic collisions, survey sampling and analysis of complex survey data, and analytical methods of longitudinal and spatial data.