Analysis of the International Scientific Production on the Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Policies, Plans, Programs and Projects in the Prevention of Drug Use (I)

Abstract

Objective: To characterize global research on the effectiveness of drug use preven- tion policies, plans, programs and projects, based on the analysis of research arti- cles published and indexed in scientific databases. Material and methods: Articles on this topic contained in the Web of Science Core Collection database were downloaded and transferred to a Microsoft Access data- base using a broad search profile that has already been successfully applied in other works. To characterize the scientific production, methods and indicators from the field of bibliometrics were used, as well as social network analysis. Results: The number of published articles (1266) increased, only diminished in the first years of the epidemic by Covid-19. The subject areas with the highest number of papers were Substance Abuse (435), Public Environmental & Occupational Health (394), Psychiatry (163) and Psychology Clinical (157). Articles published by institutions in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada predominated. The most studied topics were those related to alcohol abuse, smoking, opioids and cannabis. Conclusions: A progressive increase in the number of articles on the analyzed topic and institutional collaboration has been confirmed, which is indicative of its health and scientific interest. Alcoholism and smoking are the two most studied addictions in these papers, and the most frequent and most cited topics deal with prevention in adolescence, therapeutic compliance, the effectiveness of harm reduction programs and prevention from primary care.