Combining those costs gives us a picture of the total economic burden of these problems in the United States, building support for prevention funding. Some prevention practitioners say that if they had wanted to spend their life working with numbers they would have become mathematicians or economists. They want prevention to reflect what science tells us so that it has the greatest chance for success. We know a great deal about what works already, even without looking at numbers. Further improvement, however, may mean becoming more scientific in our approach to prevention.
National data play an important, though limited, role in our efforts to prevent substance abuse.
They do not take the place of careful evaluation of substance use levels, outcomes, risk factors, and strategies at the local level, both as a means of identifying priorities and evaluating progress through constant improvement of our prevention strategies over time. In the final analysis, practitioners need all the help they can get, and national data can be a useful adjunct to local data in our efforts to prevent substance abuse. Volume 1 for secondary students and Volume 2 for college students and young adults. Generally there is a 1-year delay in obtaining data. The time lag between when the survey is performed and when the electronic data is released varies from year to year.