Drug Abuse (Scientific Publication No. 522)
Pan American Health Organization, Pan American Sanitary Bureau, Regional Office of the World Health Organization, 525 Twenty-third Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.20037, USA, Publication Date 1990, xiv + 198 pages, ISBN 92-75-11522-2: Price: Sw.fr. 50.00, US $15.00

Click cover to buy from Amazon

The responsibility of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) (as a specialised agency of the United Nations in the field of health) centres on the areas of assessment of the epidemiological characteristics of the drug epidemic, and prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. This special issue of the Bulletin of PAHO is divided into two parts.

The first part contains a number of articles looking at research on alcoholism, tobacco use, and drug abuse that had been underway in the countries of the Americas in the late 1980's. Other papers include discussion of the methodologies used in drug abuse research, pointing out the necessity of developing alternative epidemiological surveillance systems, since short term studies need to be combined with the more standard long-term epidemiological research that is so useful for determining trends; papers looking at obtaining data on the effectiveness of prevention strategies; an evaluation of the applicability of an adapted Addiction Severity Index to Costa Rica population groups which was then a novel type of research important for Latin America.

The second part of the book presents the results of a first attempt to develop a regional information system. The epidemiological report on the use and abuse of psychoactive substances in 16 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean is presented as the results of the questionnaire and includes the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Netherlands Antilles, Panama, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. The information in many areas is incomplete but nevertheless provided a good starting point for developing policies.

This book may be of interest for those working in these countries for the historical data it presents.

-Margaret M. Stark Dr Margaret M Stark LLM DGM DMJ(Clin) DAB is one of the foremost experts in Clinical Forensic Medicine. She has been a registered medical practitioner since 1981 and has worked in the field of clinical forensic medicine since 1989. She is a well-known authority on Drugs of abuse, and is the author of the best-selling "Symptoms and signs of Substance misuse" published by Greenwich Medical Media Ltd..

 Order this book by clicking here
or via telephone: (41 22) 791 24 76, or Facsimile (fax): (41 22) 791 48 57
or via the website www.who.int/dsa
or via mail at this address: WHO, Marketing and Dissemination, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland

 Request a PDF file of this review by clicking here. (If your screen resolution can not be increased, or if printing this page is giving you problems like overlapping of graphics and/or tables etc, you can take a proper printout from a pdf file. You will need an Acrobat Reader though.)

 N.B. WHO publications can be purchased in Rupees, at a very low price, through WHO's Regional Office in New Delhi at the following address:

World Health Organization
Regional Office for South-East Asia
World Health House
Indraprastha Estate
Mahatma Gandhi Road
NEW DELHI 110002

Contact : Mr Dixit, RDOC/Sales
email : dixitr@whosea.org

 N.B. It is essential to read this journal - and especially this review as it contains several tables and high resolution graphics - under a screen resolution of 1600 x 1200 dpi or more. If the resolution is less than this, you may see broken or overlapping tables/graphics, graphics overlying text or other anomalies. It is strongly advised to switch over to this resolution to read this journal - and especially this review. These pages are viewed best in Netscape Navigator 4.7 and above.

-Anil Aggrawal

[ Major links ]

 Books for review must be submitted at the following address.

 Professor Anil Aggrawal (Editor-in-Chief)
Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology
S-299 Greater Kailash-1
New Delhi-110048
India

 This page has been constructed and maintained by Dr. Anil Aggrawal, Professor of Forensic Medicine, at the Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi-110002. You may want to give me the feedback to make this pages better. Please be kind enough to write your comments in the guestbook maintained above. These comments would help me make these pages better.

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL PAPERS APPEARING IN THIS ONLINE JOURNAL ARE COPYRIGHTED BY "ANIL AGGRAWAL'S INTERNET JOURNAL OF FORENSIC MEDICINE AND TOXICOLOGY" AND MAY NOT BE REPOSTED, REPRINTED OR OTHERWISE USED IN ANY MANNER WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE WEBMASTER

Questions or suggestions ? Please use  ICQ 19727771 or email to dr_anil@hotmail.com

Page Professor Anil Aggrawal via ICQ

home  > Volume 5, Number 1, January - June 2004  > Reviews  > Technical Books  > page 8: Drug Abuse  (you are here) Navigation ribbon