Abstract
The Road to Recovery: Substance Abuse Patterns in Maryland Track: Health and Human Services Author(s): Scott Jeffrey, Bruce Anderson The Maryland Poison Center (MPC) and the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) Geospatial Applications program have teamed up to map substance abuse patterns in the state of Maryland. From 2002 to 2004 the MPC experienced a 500% increase in the number of calls (from 3,000 to 15,000 annually) where no exposure occurred but the caller requested that the poison center identify a drug by imprint code. Historical anecdotal evidence from data collected by the MPC suggests that there are patterns to substance abuse that can be spatially linked to areas identified by ZIP Code. Using ArcGIS, the MPC-CCBC partnership will document and quantify spatial concentrations of substance abuse so that the MPC can (1) develop a better data collection system that can identify substance abuse trends quickly and (2) develop a more effective poison/substance abuse response system. Scott Jeffrey Community College of Baltimore County Geography 800 South Rolling Road Catonsville , MD 21228 US Phone: 410-455-6936 E-mail: sjeffrey@ccbcmd.edu Bruce Anderson University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Department of pharmacy Practice and Science 20 North Pine St. Baltimore , MD 21201-1180 US Phone: 410-706-7604 E-mail: bandero@rx.umaryland.edu |
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