Developments in information technology have impacted on all areas of modern life and in particular facilitated the growth of globalisation in commerce and communication. Within the drugs area this means that both drugs discourse and drug markets have become increasingly digitally enabled. In response to this, new methods are being developed that attempt to research and monitor the digital environment. In this commentary we present three case studies of innovative approaches and related challenges to software-automated data mining of the digital environment: (i) an e-shop finder to detect e-shops offering new psychoactive substances, (ii) scraping of forum data from online discussion boards, (iii) automated sentiment analysis of discussions in online discussion boards. We conclude that the work presented brings opportunities in terms of leveraging data for developing a more timely and granular understanding of the various aspects of drug-use phenomena in the digital environment. In particular, combining the number of e-shops, discussion posts, and sentiments regarding particular substances could be used for ad hoc risk assessments as well as longitudinal drug monitoring and indicate "online popularity". The main challenges of digital data mining involve data representativity and ethical considerations.
- MeSH
- data mining MeSH
- léčivé přípravky * MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- monitorování léčiv MeSH
- obchod MeSH
- poruchy spojené s užíváním psychoaktivních látek * MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
BACKGROUND: General population surveys present a useful tool for getting information on drug use prevalence, but they often fail to reach a sufficient number of users, which is required to get detailed information on use patterns or other characteristics. Web surveys, especially when they use social networking sites, might present a complementary mechanism for getting a better picture of drug use by reaching hard-to-reach populations. AIM: The main objective of this study was to examine Facebook advertisements as a recruitment strategy in the “European Web Survey on Drugs: patterns of use”, a project organized by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. METHODS:Recruitment campaigns invited adults aged 18+ years who had consumed at least one drug (cannabis, MDMA/ecstasy, amphetamines, or cocaine) in the past 12 months to complete an online survey. The advertisements were created in Facebook’s Advertisement program and were used in Croatia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. RESULTS: Among the eligible participants recruited via Facebook (N=5256), 68.1% were from Croatia, 24.4% from Switzerland, and 7.5% from the Netherlands. The Croatian and Swiss participants were younger and more likely to be males compared to the Dutch participants. Chi-square tests showed that there were significant differences in the frequency of drug use between the samples from the different countries for almost all drugs. CONCLUSION:The Facebook recruitment strategy was successful in reaching young adults, as well as recreational drug users, although the costs, campaign duration, available budget, and content of the ad images differed among the countries.
