The role of drug use data in public health research.

The growing importance of drug consumption automated databases in public health research is summarised in this research. Dispensed drugs data, and drug consumption data more in general, are a relatively new source of information for health research. This analysis takes into consideration the known uses of drug consumption data in various fields of health related research. Pharmacoepidemiology examples of adverse drug reaction studies are presented along with drug prescription surveillance and analysis of prescribing patterns, useful tools for health services evaluation as well as health economics, from the simple evaluation of health care burden for drug expenditure to the various studies of cost of drugs. Other fields of use are prevalence and incidence epidemiology studies, or causal inference studies using drugs data as health indicators. Drug utilisation automated databases, organised and maintained in large areas, with individual information, seem to improve the feasibility and usefulness of this kind of studies. It reduces the need for time, money and people to perform valid scientific investigations, in epidemiology as well as in other areas of health research.