Study: PSAs Effective in Reducing Teen Marijuana Use
Source: Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, February 12, 2001: p. 4

Full Text COPYRIGHT 2001 Manisses Communications Group, Inc.

Researchers have determined that televised public-service announcements (PSAs) targeted to specific teen personality types can significantly reduce youths' marijuana use. In a study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Public Health, researchers report that PSAs with an anti-marijuana message resulted in at least a 26.7 percent drop in marijuana use among the targeted teen population.

The PSAs were designed to appeal to the 50 percent of teens that tested high in the area of "sensation seeking." Philip Palmgreen, Ph.D., who headed the University of Kentucky research team that conducted the study, defined sensation seeking as a "personality trait associated with the need for novel, emotionally intense stimuli and the willingness to take risks to obtain such stimulation." Teens with this trait are at a higher risk for using drugs at an earlier age.

Palmgreen and colleagues developed SENTAR, a prevention approach targeted to sensation-seeking teens. SENTAR encompasses components that include designing high-sensation-value prevention messages that are novel, dramatic and attention-getting and placing these messages in high-sensation-value contexts, such as favorite teen TV programs. The study showed that the SENTAR-based campaign both receives the attention of high sensation-seeking teens and can change their drug use behaviors.

As part of the study, anti-marijuana PSAs developed for high sensation-seeking adolescents were televised from January through April 1997 in Fayette County, Ky. (which includes Lexington). Similar campaigns were conducted over the same period in 1998 in Fayette County and Knox County, Tenn. (which includes Knoxville). At least 70 percent of the targeted age group were exposed to at least three PSAs a week.

To establish the extent of teen marijuana use prior to the campaigns and to assess the campaigns' effect, 100 randomly selected public-school students were interviewed monthly in each county for 32 months. The interviews began eight months before the first Fayette County campaign and ended eight months after the last campaign. More than 3,000 teens in grades 7 through 10 were interviewed.

Results showed that the campaigns led to a significant reduction in current marijuana use (use within the past 30 days) in the target population. The campaigns also succeeded in reversing the common trend of more teens beginning to use marijuana as they get older.

In Knox County, the effects of the PSAs were still evident several months after the effort's conclusion. There, the estimated drop in the relative proportion of high sensation-seekers using marijuana was 26.7 percent.

As expected, the campaigns had no effect on teens characterized as low sensation-seekers, a group that already exhibited low levels of marijuana use.

"While these findings do not indicate that all anti-drug PSAs will produce behavioral change, nor that PSAs alone should be the only avenue to prevention, they do show that SENTAR-based PSAs can play an important role in drug abuse prevention," Palmgreen concluded.