Teens and prescription drugs: Understanding media messages to prescribe prevention

The misuse of prescription drugs by teens in the United States is growing public health problem, but the specific characteristics of prescription drugs necessitate new thinking about models of education and prevention. For example, there is anecdotal evidence of the contributions of the media to the burgeoning prescription drug abuse epidemic, but little systematic research has examined the breadth, scope, or content of media messages about prescription drugs.

This paper will present the results of an environmental scan and content analysis that quantifies and describes different sources of information in the teen media environment on the topic of prescription drugs. More specifically, the paper addresses the following research questions. What is the scope of messages in the teen media environment on the topic of prescription drugs? To what extent can these messages be classified as pro-drug or anti-drug and what is the relative distribution of their valence? To what extent are media messages about prescription drugs factually correct and non-biased?

Because knowledge and attitudes are strong predictors of behavior, research that describes environmental influences on attitude formation can offer important recommendations to practitioners and policymakers in developing individual and community level interventions to decrease prescription drug abuse. To that end, the findings of this paper will be presented within a larger model of influences on teen prescription drug abuse, coupled with concrete messages for addressing myths and misperceptions about the physiological effects, risks of use and safety, rates of use and norms, and availability of prescription drugs.