The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, often abbreviated NSDUH, is an annual nationwide survey on the use of legal and

illegal drug The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary law, sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the Recreational drug use, recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. While some drugs are illegal to p ...

s, as well as

mental disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

s, that has been conducted by the

United States federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 ...

since 1971. It is funded by the

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA; pronounced ) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is charged with improving the quality and availability of treatment and rehabilitative services ...

(SAMHSA), and is supervised by the SAMHSA's

Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA; pronounced ) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is charged with improving the quality and availability of treatment and rehabilitative services ...

. The survey interviews about 70,000 Americans aged 12 and older, through face-to-face interviews conducted where the respondent lives. In 1988,

RTI International Research Triangle Institute, trading as RTI International, is a nonprofit organization headquartered in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. RTI provides research and technical services. It was founded in 1958 with $500,000 in funding f ...

started conducting the survey, and they have been contracted by SAMHSA to continue doing so through 2017. It was originally called the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, but was renamed in 2002 to its current name. The NSDUH, along with the

Monitoring the Future The Monitoring the Future (MTF) study, also known as the National High School Senior Survey, is a long-term epidemiological study that surveys trends in legal and illicit drug use among American adolescents and adults as well as personal levels of ...

, is one of the two main ways the

National Institute on Drug Abuse The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is a United States federal government research institute whose mission is to "advance science on the causes and consequences of drug use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual a ...

measures drug use in the United States.

References

Household surveys United States Department of Health and Human Services Drugs in the United States {{Health-stub