Internet Monitoring Of Prescription Drug Abuse

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application proposes to develop the Pharmaceutical Risk Internet Surveillance Monitor (PRISM), an innovative approach to postmarketing surveillance of indicators suggesting diversion/abuse of opioid pharmaceutical agents. Such surveillance may produce leading indicators of an emerging epidemic of abuse (such as the OxyContin epidemic). Public health relevance includes providing reliable and timely data to allow health, law enforcement, industry, and community leaders take steps to limit potential damage associated with an epidemic of pharmaceutical drug abuse. PRISM will automatically track and classify Internet "chatter" by abusers of particular pharmaceutical products. Specifically, in Phase I, an expert advisory group will help specify useful data and report formats for PRISM as well as help evaluate Phase I findings. A systematic, justified methodology will be created for detecting and including/excluding websites to be monitored. Also in Phase I, various content analysis software programs will be modified to automatically detect, track and classify Internet abuser-to-abuser messages about opioid Pharmaceuticals found on publically accessible message boards. A feasibility test of the reliability and internal validity of PRISM will be conducted in Phase I. Phase II will see development of a full prototype of PRISM and demonstration of its reliability and internal and external validity.