Supporting community-based organisations’ use of evidence is an effective way to link research to action in health programmes. One approach to this work is to develop a strategy of community-based knowledge transfer and exchange to facilitate the use of research evidence in service planning and delivery.

Researchers working on this topic have identified a number of activities that are key to the success of these strategies: fostering a culture favourable to the use of research evidence and which recognises its importance in decision-making; providing evidence that is directly relevant to the work of community-based organisations; supporting activities that link research evidence to action; and, evaluating these efforts.

Two reports have been published that explore drug-related public expenditure and the methodological challenges faced in estimating its value: Public expenditure on supply reduction policies¹ was published in May 2017, while Drug treatment expenditure: a methodological overview² was published in October 2017. The reports overlap extensively in terms of their descriptions of what drug-related public expenditure is, the context in which they were commissioned, and the overall messages from their findings.

What is drug-related public expenditure?

Public expenditure is defined as ‘the value of goods and services purchased or utilised by the general government in order to perform each of its functions’ (p. 15).² This includes any drug-related spending across the various functions of government, including healthcare, justice, public order, education, and social protection. Broadly speaking, drug-related public expenditure is described as ‘labelled’ or ‘unlabelled’.