Why are indicators useful? Indicators inform your target audiences about substance use trends in your community, helping to paint a broad picture of the local impact of these problems. Collecting data at regular intervals will also help you ascertain if your work is making a difference in reducing substance use problems.

Reporting programs:

• Focus community strategies for action. Monitoring substance use indicators can help you develop and monitor your community strategy and determine where to focus your efforts. 
• Track the impact of new policies and programs. When programs and policies are associated with favorable changes in indicators, community groups may be able to build or strengthen local support for these activities.
• Monitor community changes. Tracking changes over time illustrates trends in substance use harms in the community.
• Address community perceptions. Indicator monitoring can change the way communities perceive the problem of addiction and also how they take action to reduce substance use. When confronted with community denial, indicator programs can use data to establish that local problems are more predominant than publicly acknowledged.
• Provide a common information base. While there will always be different interpretations of what the data show, indicators will provide a common starting point for collaboration and action planning.
• Compare the level of local problems to those in similar communities. This comparison can help detect relationships between substance use and other community characteristics or policies.