INCREASING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TELEVISED ANTIDRUG PSAS

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This proposal is for a competing continuation of a project addressing a highly important objective--how to strengthen the impact of the mass media as a vital component in drug abuse prevention by making more effective persuasive use of televised anti-drug public service announcements (PSAs) in prevention campaigns. The study will extend research devoted to more effective design and targeting of PSAs to reach high sensation seeking teens and young adults with prevention messages. Sensation seeking, a trait characterized by novelty seeking and risk taking, is consistently related to drug use in adolescents and young adults and is associated with distinct preferences for novel and arousing messages. These and other research findings suggest that televised anti-drug PSA campaigns based on the needs of high sensation seekers, and employing additional features of well-executed campaigns, can go beyond effects on knowledge to produce significant changes in drug-related-attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The study will examine these and other important prevention issues in the context of campaigns directed at adolescents, a crucial audience whose use of illicit drugs has recently increased. The study will involve a field experiment in two similar communities and will employ an innovative and methodologically rigorous controlled time- series design. Televised PSAs that target high sensation-seeking 8th to 11th graders will be shown in an intensive 4-month campaign in Lexington, KY. Similar campaigns will follow one year later, simultaneously in Lexington and in Knoxville, TN. Beginning 8 months prior to the first campaign, and ending 8 months after the subsequent campaigns, the study will monitor drug-related attitudes, behaviors, and protective and risk factors (particularly sensation seeking), through interviews with monthly random samples from teen cohorts in the two communities. The principal objectives of the study are to examine: 1) the ability of a televised PSA prevention campaign, employing new and promising targeting strategies, to reach at-risk adolescents and produce significant changes in drug-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors; 2) the ability of a booster campaign to enhance or sustain the impact of a previous campaign; 3) how various protective and risk factors, particularly sensation seeking, may mediate the effects of anti-drug PSAs on attitudes and behaviors; 4) the causal lag periods involved in campaign effects; and, 5) the relationships (lagged and synchronous) between drug-related attitudes and behaviors.