Objective: To determine the presence of bias on the estimation of the consumption sometime in life of alcohol, tobacco or illegal drugs and inhalable substances, and to propose a correction for this in the case it is present.
Materials and methods: Mexican National Addictions Surveys (NAS) 2002, 2008, and 2011 were analyzed to compare population estimations of consumption sometime in life of tobacco, alcohol or illegal drugs and inhalable substances. A couple of alternative approaches for bias correction were developed.
Results: Estimated national prevalences of consumption sometime in life of alcohol and tobacco in the NAS 2008 are not plausible. There was no evidence of bias on the consumption sometime in life of illegal drugs and inhalable substances. New estimations for tobacco and alcohol consumption sometime in life were made, which resulted in plausible values when compared to other data available.
Conclusion: Future analyses regarding tobacco and alcohol using NAS 2008 data will have to rely on these newly generated data weights, that are able to reproduce the new (plausible) estimations.