U.S. Government

SAMHSA is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with a mission “to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities.” The Data, Outcomes, and Quality (DOQ) section of their website publishes data and statistics about substance use and abuse, and mental illness. Data is available for download in multiple file formats and can also be analyzed online. Topical, methodological and geographical reports are also available.

NIDA is part of the National Institutes of Health and aims to support research on drug abuse and addiction, and disseminate that information quickly to the community. The NIDA website makes available publications with statistics about drug-related issues by topic, series, audience, and report type. A small, but growing number of data sets are available for download as SAS or ASCII files on the NIDA Data Share site.

NIAA is a division of the National Institutes of Health with a research and public health focus specifically related to alcohol. NIAA is particularly useful for finding statistics written for different audiences (general public, educators, or researchers) located on the publications section of the website. This organization also maintains the Alcohol Epidemiological Data Directory, which can be searched to find datasets available through other organizations. If you’re looking for policy information pertaining to alcohol, check out NIAA’s Alcohol Policy Information System.

NCHS is part of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and monitor’s the health of U.S. citizens through data collection. For quick statistics, visit FastStats, which are brief guides on topics (some specific to substance use and abuse, and others that intersect with substances, like medical conditions, sex, and mortality). The NCHS also provides online access to their annual survey data. Questionnaires and related documents for the The National Health Interview Survey (1963-present) are available online, and datasets can be downloaded as SPSS, SAS, AND ASCII files.

Published by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Statistical Abstract is a summary of statistics about social, political, and economic issues. Data collection ended with the 2012 edition, so this online resource will be primarily useful for data collected between 1900-2012. The most useful section for data on substance use is Health & Nutrition. But this topic can intersect with other sections depending on the research focus. Other sections to consider: Deaths and Law Enforcement, Courts, & Prisons. In addition to the Statistical Abstracts, the U.S. Census website can be searched for other relevant reports and statistics on substance use and abuse.
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