A Systems Dynamic Model for Drug Abuse and Drug-Related Crime in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

A Systems Dynamic Model for Drug Abuse and Drug-Related Crime in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Comput Math Methods Med. 2017;2017:4074197 Authors: Nyabadza F, Coetzee L Abstract The complex problem of drug abuse and drug-related crimes in communities in the Western Cape province cannot be studied in isolation but through the system they are embedded in. In this paper, a theoretical model to evaluate the syndemic of substance abuse and drug-related crimes within the Western Cape province of South Africa is constructed and explored. The dynamics of drug abuse and drug-related crimes within the Western Cape are simulated using STELLA software. The simulation results are consistent with the data from SACENDU and CrimeStats SA, highlighting the usefulness of such a model in designing and planning interventions to combat substance abuse and its related problems. PMID: 28555161 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine - Category: Statistics Tags: Comput Math Methods Med Source Type: research