WHO–EMCDDA cooperation
Cooperation between the World Health Organization and the EMCDDA started in 1995, when the agency became operational. It covers the exchange of data, methodological information and tools on the basis of a working agreement, which was formalised in March 2000 through a Memorandum of Understanding. The WHO Regional Office for Europe attends the meetings of the EMCDDA Management Board as an observer on behalf of the organisation.
Over more than a decade of cooperation, working relations and cooperation have been strengthened through joint activities and common projects, and partnerships have developed in different policy areas. Cooperation between WHO and EMCDDA has focused on the development, testing and evaluation of cost-effective interventions for substance use disorders (a workbook series on evaluation of treatment for substance-use disorders) and the compilation and dissemination of evidence-based information on health and social consequences of drug use through the EMCDDA Best practice portal and the WHO’s Health Evidence Network, HEN.
Another area of common interest and close cooperation is prison health. As a member of the Steering group of the ’Health in Prison Network’, the EMCDDA is committed to improving the available data on drug use and related health service provision in custodial settings.
A further area of collaboration is drug-related infectious diseases (DRID). The EMCDDA collaborates closely with WHO and its European Office regarding the monitoring of infectious diseases, for example by attending mutual expert meetings and through joint publications and work is ongoing to see how to best integrate activities such as the DRID data collected by EMCDDA into the surveillance of HIV and viral hepatitis in Europe coordinated jointly by WHO/Europe and ECDC.
Regarding analysis of DRID data, the EMCDDA has set up a network of modellers and epidemiologists in collaboration with the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, the ’European study group for mathematical modelling and epidemiological analysis of drug-related infectious diseases’ with the aim of better understanding the epidemiology of infectious diseases in drug users and ultimately to provide information for public health policy on this topic.
