Palmgreen
Testifies Before Congressional Subcommittee
Dr.
Philip Palmgreen’s years of research
with the National Institute on Drug Abuse
will lead him to Washington, where he will
testify before the  Congressional
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy
and Human Resources on the effectiveness
of anti-drug media campaigns. Speaking on
June 26, 2002, Palmgreen will present results
of his NIDA-funded research evaluating the
effectiveness of targeted televised public
service announcement campaigns in reducing
marijuana use among high-sensation-seeking
adolescents.
The
project began in 1987 in a lab where testing
was done to target high sensation seeking
young adults. Years later the project ran
actual campaigns in field settings. The
most recent used a time-series design, which
was able to demonstrate that the campaign
was highly successful in reducing marijuana
use.
The
main goals of the study had two levels.
According to Palmgreen’s data, the
first one was to study the impact of televised
PSA campaigns on marijuana use of at-risk
teens. The second goal was to attempt to
interrupt or reverse the normally observed
age-related upward trends in adolescent
marijuana use. The main design of the project
focused on developing or combining ads with
high sensation seeking appeal.
Palmgreen
assisted in gathering data from Lexington,
Ky., and Knoxville, Tenn. Lexington results
showed that between January-April 1997 and
January-April 1998 when the public service
announcements were viewed by high sensation
seeking young adults, marijuana usage decreased.
Knoxville gave the same results in 1998.
The
study began in these areas eight months
before the first Lexington campaign and
ended the same amount of time after the
1998 campaigns. A total of 100 students
were randomly selected out of 6,371 to be
part of the study. Palmgreen’s results
showed that “the cohort aged as the
study progressed, allowing us to plot developmental
profiles of marijuana use in each city prior
to, during, and after the campaigns to detect
campaign effects.”
Palmgreen
has served on three research committees
that evaluated the use of public service
announcements to decrease marijuana use
in young adults. He is now co-principal
investigator for a project called Targeting
Mass Media Campaigns for Risky Sexual Behavior.
This project is sponsored by the National
Institute of Mental Health. This project
is focused to increase condom use by young
adults at-risk for sexually transmitted
diseases. Plus, he is serving as the principal
investigator on a campaign also sponsored
by the National Institute on Drug Abuse
to investigate the use of anti-marijuana
and anti-drug campaigns among adolescents.
The project is called Effective Media Strategies
for Drug Abuse Prevention.
For
a complete view at Palmgreen's research
results, see the American Journal of Public
Health, Feb. 2001, V. 91, No. 2.
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