Evidence based Practices for Drug Abuse Information Management and Awareness Approaches

Abstract

The harmful use of illicit drugs “Drug abuse” is the most frequent problem in the world. Khat, heroin, cocaine, cigarette and cannabis have been the most common used drugs in African countries, for instance Tanzania. Youth have been identified as the most vulnerable group and highly affected. Drug abuse results into economic, social and health effects including; mental retardation, lung diseases, heart diseases and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), disorders in adolescence, young adults and the general public. Several awareness and initiatives program were done by the government and private sectors in bringing awareness on the effects of drug abuse through community and school based education, distribution of brochures as well as media. However, in Tanzania, management of addict’s data, statistics about addicts, storage and accessibility of drug abuse information are conducted on paper based approaches resulting into several problems such as damage of data and loss of information, time consumption in data collection, delay in reporting, and difficulties in reaching the large number of people during awareness programs. This paper presents the evidence of practices, awareness and information management on drug abuse, case of Dar es Salaam and Arusha major cities in Tanzania, with web and mobile application designed solution for drug abuse data management and awareness creation.