Educational initiatives in the prevention of drug related harm

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper discusses educational initiatives which have the objective of preventing drug‐related harm. Some examples of initiatives utilizing mass media campaigns and community development are reviewed. A re‐emergent orientation which has been particularly evident in community programmes in the alcohol area is a focus on policies and stimulation of public participation in their development and implementation. The mass media have played an important role, usually by dissemination of information in news, documentary and feature materials. Paid advertising has also been involved to a small extent, but the possibility of a backlash against this has to be taken into account. Mass media provide a very visible prevention strategy and even those approaches focusing on individual behaviour are liable to be subjected to political interference. It is suggested that the policy orientation for educational initiatives provides a viable and valuable complementary or even alternative strategy to attempt to persuade individuals to change their drug‐related behaviour.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: