(provided by application): This competing continuation application seeks two years of modest funding to conduct timely analyses of substantive findings from the NIDA-funded project, Estimating Current Hard Drug Users and Operatives -- (hereafter, Estimating -- R01 DA09339). The originally funded aims of Estimating involved developing innovative methodologies to accurately estimate the population and characteristics of current hard (crack, powder cocaine and heroin) drug users and distributors within defined geographic areas. Central Harlem and the entire borough of the Bronx were systematically studied using the innovative technologies developed during this project. The Estimating sample is unique in gaining access to hidden users and acquiring sizable samples of subgroups of hard drug users and operatives in Harlem (657) and the Bronx (351). The nominating grid technique obtains valuable surrogate reports about the behaviors of ten times more hard drug users and operatives than could be interviewed. The lengthy Estimating schedule obtained extensive and detailed self-reports about many behavioral domains, including respondents drug consumption, drug treatment and health-related contacts, non-drug criminal behaviors, drug market participation, criminal justice histories, and many other related topics. The validity of subject self-reports and surrogate reports about nominees were documented. Prior reviews did not provide funding for substantive data analyses. The present application requests two years of funding to analyze and write about 20 publications. The broad goal will be to improve community-level epidemiology about the lifestyles (AIM I) of hard drug users and operatives, and the major consequences (AIM II) associated with their use and distribution of crack, powder cocaine, and heroin. The project staff has extensive training and skill to manage large complex data sets, perform consistency and validity analyses, review relevant literatures, and publish in peer-reviewed journals. The data set has more than sufficient sample size and statistical power, a wide range of respondents (and nominees) representative of the areas sampled, and over a thousand variables measuring many domains of behaviors. Twenty-one specific analyses are proposed including a focus upon typology development, lifestyles (e.g. drug consumption, drug distribution roles and sales, nondrug criminality, homelessness), and their institutional contacts (with drug treatment, criminal justice institutions, and welfare systems).
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