ABSTRACT
This handbook chapter has modest aims. It offers an overview of epidemiological methods and models used to study processes of becoming dependent upon tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and other internationally regulated drugs, with ‘drug dependence’ serving more or less as a synonym for ‘drug addiction.’ The central conceptual model is one of agent–host–environment interaction, and here the concept of ‘agent’ encompasses drug compounds in drug epidemiology just as the ‘agent’ might be the influenza or Zika viruses in other branches of communicable disease epidemiology. Several statistical models are mentioned, including models for Hill function parameter estimation, as can be used when a dose–response relationship has a sigmoidal shape. Examples and illustrations are provided from past and recent epidemiological studies.
