Statistical processing

Source data

Reports from the municipalities and drug abuse treatment centers. From January 1, 2024, it is only mandatory to report for drug abuse offers that have authorization to report on behalf of a municipality.

Frequency of data collection

Municipalities are obliged to report data on social drug addiction treatment to Statistics Denmark on an ongoing basis, however no later than 15 days after the end of the month, cf. databekendtgørelsen.

Municipalities are obliged to report data on medicinal drug addiction treatment to Statistics Denmark on an ongoing basis, however no later than 1 month after initiation of treatment, cf. Bekendtgørelse nr. 1789 af 16/12/2015.

Data collection

Direct reporting or system-to-system reporting via administrative IT-system to SMDB.

Data validation

As part of the data validation process, Statistics Denmark continuously monitors whether we receive data on time and whether the data appears accurate. If Statistics Denmark finds that no cases have been reported or fewer cases than expected, we contact the municipality to clarify whether we have registered the correct contact person and whether the municipality needs advice and guidance on reporting. This could also be due to IT problems, which Statistics Denmark will try to resolve, often in collaboration with the municipality's IT systems. Statistics Denmark has started monitoring data earlier than before, known as early validation. With early validation, we monitor data at the beginning of a reporting year, as opposed to waiting until after the end of the reporting year to review the data.

Statistics Denmark communicate deadlines for when municipalities must submit, validate, and approve their data through an annual cycle via Statistics Denmark's information page and through emails to relevant contact persons. For the 2024 submissions, the approval deadline was February 28, giving municipalities two months to review their submissions for the 2024 reporting year and correct any errors and deficiencies before approval. After the end of the reporting year, Statistics Denmark engage with reporters to validate and approve the data. In validating the 2024 data, Statistics Denmark introduced a new process where municipalities log in to the SMDB web and validate their submissions based on 8 questions. Previously, Statistics Denmark sent validation reports in Excel. The purpose is to enhance data security and make validation easier for both reporters and Statistics Denmark. Municipalities approve data in writing after addressing the 8 questions and confirming that the data overall accurately reflects the substance abuse treatment provided by the municipality throughout the year. If not all 8 questions can be answered affirmatively, the municipality has agreed with Statistics Denmark on when they can improve their data quality for each question. If there has been a significant increase or decrease (over 20 percent) or other unusual developments, and the municipality still wishes to approve the data, Statistics Denmark will request an explanation for documentation purposes.

Data compilation

After reporting data in SMDB, an age is calculated for the citizen at the time of the incident. The age appearing in the statistics bank is the citizen's age at the end of the census year, not when the citizen started treatment.

Only the municipalities that approve their data are included in the published figures.

It is only possible to report persons with a valid social security number. Anonymous persons in drug abuse treatment are not reported, and likewise foreigners who have not yet received a Danish social security number cannot be reported to SMDB. Due to the fact that this practice is also applicable in the published figures, invalid social security numbers are removed from the database before publication of the statistics. In previous years it has been possible to report invalid social security numbers, but this is no longer possible.

Previous analyzes of data from SMDB have shown that a large proportion of the active contact procedure in the database should have been ended. Since the data validation in 2016, there has been a focus on this. In addition, in connection with a municipality's system change (i.e. change from one administrative IT system to another or to manual reporting), a review of active cases takes place, so that the erroneously open cases are closed before the transition to the new system.

When calculating persons in either a course or persons with activity during the period in SMDBV003, Statistics Denmark will limit that a person can only be counted once in the specified period. Statistics Denmark selects the most recent event for the person. Persons in active treatment may, however, be counted several times if they change municipality during a reference year.

Adjustment

When there are less than 10 days between two contact or treatment courses for the same citizen for the same municipality, the two courses are merged in the register SMDB_VBGF but not in SMDB_VBGH. This is done to account for municipalities that change IT-system.

Statistics Denmark has noted that the courses were not completely merged before, but this problem is now solved by and large. However, they are still not completely merged if there are multiple affiliations, but it is not considered a considerable problem.

Statistics Denmark encourages municipalities to switch systems according to a new model where system change correction is not necessary. Most system changes after 2022 have been made with the new model. The new model provides more accurate data.