DOI: 10.3886/icpsr06843.v3
title: National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 1979
title: Version 3

description: This series measures the prevalence and correlates of drug use in the United States. The surveys are designed to provide quarterly, as well as annual, estimates. Information is provided on the use of illicit drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and nonmedical use of prescription drugs among members of United States households aged 12 and older. Questions include age at first use, as well as lifetime, annual, and past-month usage for the following drug classes: cannabis, cocaine, hallucinogens, heroin, inhalants, alcohol, tobacco, nonmedical use of prescription drugs including psychotherapeutics, and polysubstance use. Respondents were also asked about their knowledge of drugs, perceptions of the risks involved, population movement, and sequencing of drug use. Fifty-seven percent of respondents were asked specific questions about their perceptions of the consequences of marijuana and alcohol use. The other 43 percent were asked about heroin use among friends. Demographic data include gender, race, age, ethnicity, marital status, educational level, job status, income level, and household composition.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Performed consistency checks.; Created online analysis version with question text.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: The overall interview completion rate was 83 percent. The interview completion rates for the three age groups were: 86 percent for youth, 84 percent for young adults, and 80 percent for older adults.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), 1979
description: National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Series
description: Data were collected by Response Analysis Corporation, Princeton, NJ, under contract with National Institute on Drug Abuse. The data and codebook were prepared for release by Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC, and the codebook was initially distributed by National Opinion Research Center, Chicago, IL, under contracts with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
For selected variables, statistical imputation was done following logical imputation to replace missing responses. These variables are identified in the codebook as "...LOGICALLY IMPUTED" and "...imputed" for the logical procedure or by the designation "IMPUTATION REVISED" in the variable label when the statistical procedure was also performed. The names of statistically imputed variables begin with the letters "IR". For each imputation-revised variable there is a corresponding imputation indicator variable that indicates whether a case's value on the variable resulted from an interview response or was imputed by the hot-deck technique, which is described in the codebook.
The "basic sampling weights" are equal to the inverse of the probabilities of selection of sample respondents. To obtain "final NHSDA weights," the basic weights were adjusted to take into account dwelling unit-level and individual-level nonresponse and further adjusted to ensure consistency with population projections from the United States Bureau of the Census.
To protect the confidentiality of respondents, all variables that could be used to identify individuals have been encrypted, collapsed, or deleted. These modifications should not affect analytic uses of the data.
New editing, revised handling of missing data, and different sampling weights were applied to the original 1979 NHSDA data file to make it more comparable with later NHSDAs. This resulted in several differences between the original and public use files. Although differences in prevalence estimates are generally small, published findings of the 1979 NHSDA cannot be replicated using the public use file.
The codebook, which includes the data collection instruments, is provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.
For some drugs that have multiple names, questions regarding the use of that drug may be asked for each distinct name. For example, the use of methedrine and desoxyn are measured separately in this study even though they are both methamphetamine.
description: The civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the coterminous United States (Alaska and Hawaii excluded) aged 12 and older.
description: Multistage area probability sample design involving five selection stages: (1) primary sampling units areas (e.g., counties), (2) subareas within primary areas (blocks or block groups), (3) listing units within subareas (housing units or group quarters), (4) age-group-smoking classes within sampled listing units, and (5) eligible individuals within sampled age-group-smoking classes. A total of 103 Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) were selected to represent the total United States population. These PSUs were defined as metropolitan areas, counties, groups of counties, and independent cities. The rural supplement consisted of an additional eight rural PSUs. The two race classifications used were white and Black/other, and the two race/ethnic group choices were white and Black/other. Minorities and younger household members were oversampled. Five age divisions were usually classified into three groups: youth (ages 12 to 17), young adult (ages 18 to 21 and 22 to 25), and older adult (ages 26 to 34 and 35 and older). Each age group was sampled separately, and the probability of selection decreased with the prospective respondent's age. One youth and/or one adult could be chosen per household. The basic national sample was supplemented by a sample of residents of rural areas.