eddra

The Exchange on Drug Demand Reduction Action (EDDRA) information system is an Internet-based database providing details of a wide range of drug-responses programmes in the EU.

Focusing on hands-on experience and good practice in the field, the system caters for the needs of drug practitioners, policy-makers and decision-makers involved in planning and implementing drug-responses interventions.

The EDDRA system:

• provides accurate, reliable and comparable information on evaluated drug-responses interventions in the European Union;
• provides information on innovative or collaborative programmes in the field;
• promotes contacts between practitioners and teams who could benefit from each other’s experience;
• promotes and facilitates information exchange on programme evaluation, both external and internal; and
• coordinates efforts with other European and international initiatives to pool
• expertise and avoid duplication of effort

The adoption of EDDRA as a REITOX core task in 1999 was a significant step forward for the project. Developments in 2000 included a dynamic multilingual facility making it possible to navigate the system in the eleven EU languages.

In order to facilitate and secure data collection in the Member States, an offline editing software has also been created providing an alternative to editing project information on paper. This tool, which is regularly, is available to local project editors from the national EDDRA managers. In 2001, a new users’ view for the EDDRA website was developed together with a new simplified questionnaire and a new release of the offline tool. A new Scientific Manual has also been elaborated and is downloadable from the EDDRA web pages.In June 2004, the database contains around 700 programmes.