Developed by Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) and the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR), the Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms (CSUCH) project has two main objectives:
- Provide comparable, valid and up-to-date data on costs and harms of substance use in Canada; and
- Allow people to actively explore and analyze the data through the interactive data visualization tool.
Regularly updated estimates are needed to monitor the economic cost and harms from substance use in Canada. These estimates can be used by public health experts and government officials to:
- Prioritize and target relevant public policies;
- Create initiatives to target the harms caused by substance use;
- Identify information gaps, research needs and refinements tnational data reporting systems; and
- Measure the impact of changing levels and patterns of substance use, as well as changes to policy and societal responses to substance use.