Software Development--Drug Abuse Ethnographic Research

Since the mid-1970's, information on current and emerging drug abuse patterns and trends has been bepidemiologic data derived primarily from national probability samples and population-based surveys.however, there has been increasing interest in use of data generated through ethnographic methods toof drug abusing behavior. While surveys typically answer questions about the nature and extent of drtoward drugs, ethnographic studies and contextual descriptions give qualitative meaning to underlyinpersons engaged in or directly affected by drug abuse in various settings. To realize the full potenform these studies, careful analysis and quantification of results from unstructured interviews mustethnographers. Currently, a variety of commercial off the shelf software (COTS) is available to assifrom focus groups, ethnographic interviews, and other qualitative data collection methodologies, butsupport the processing and analysis of qualitative data is lacking. Typically, COTS applications proto support specific qualitative research needs. The burden of data entry of transcript data, addingorganizing coded transcript data for analysis, and interpreting results is in existing COTS applicatsupport qualitative research, a new approach to data entry, transcript processing, and analysis wasII development will focus on the completion of all design features found to be feasible and likely tbase in the professional ethnographer and academic settings initially targeted as markets. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)