WESTAT
DAWN Operations Center
1650 Research Blvd.
Rockville,
MD 20850-3195
301-443-1596 (Voice)
301-443-9847 (FAX)
Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a large-scale, ongoing drug abuse data collection system sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The major objectives of the system are to: identify substances associated with drug-related episodes and deaths that are reported to emergency departments and medical examiners; and monitor trends in drug use consequences and to detect new drugs of abuse; and to assess health hazards associated with drug use. The universe for the emergency department component of DAWN is drug-related visits to emergency departments of acute care hospitals in the United States and the universe for the medical examiner component is drug-related deaths reported by 145 medical examiner jurisdictions in 43 metropolitan areas. DAWN is a continuous survey whose primary audience is government agencies, legislators, pharmaceutical manufacturers, universities, and researchers.
"Advance Reports" of preliminary emergency department data are published semi-annually. "Annual Reports" of final emergency department and medical examiner data are published annually.