Resumen de Age-specific multi-state drug initiation models: insights from considering heterogeneity*

C. Almeder, J.P. Caulkins, G. Feichtinger, Gernot Tragler

• The present paper introduces several models concerning drug initiation and drug epidemics that extend traditional single and multi-state dynamic models by explicitly considering the age distribution of users. This age-specificity yields more realistic models, because both human behaviour and the influence of personal relationships can depend on age and the age difference. Furthermore, prevention programmes—especially school-based programmes—can be targeted to reach certain age groups. The models allow the dynamics of drug epidemics to be reproduced in greater detail. The models can be used either for studying the features of drug initiation or for discovering how best to allocate resources to prevention programmes for different age groups.