Equipping Influencers with Tools to Help Students Make Healthy Choices about Drug Use

Background: The annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) study examines rates of substance use and attitudes among American young people toward substance use. The most recent findings show a dramatic increase in vaping in a single year: Nearly 2-in-5 12th graders reported past-year vaping, while 8th and 10th graders also reported an increase in past-year vaping, translating to approximately 1.3 million more youth who vaped in 2018. Data also show a general decline in the perceived risk of harm of many substances: More than 70% of high school seniors do not view regular marijuana smoking as being very harmful. These findings raise concerns about the impact on brain health and potential for addiction and illustrate the need for fact-based, reliable, and current information about the effects of drug use. Parents want information from trustworthy sources to reinforce that message; therefore, , the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) developed and elevated science-based content for students and their influencers through the development of interactive educational tools and enhanced dissemination of these resources.

Program background: The NIDA for Teens website is a prime message outreach channel, a key education tool through which students can access facts about substance use. Since a growing number of youth influencers access NIDA for Teens resources, NIDA responded and developed dedicated portions of the site for educators, featuring standards- and science-based lesson plans and activities. NIDA also developed a parents’ section with fact-based resources that families can use to talk about the effects of drug use on the brain, body, and behavior.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Audience interaction with NIDA resources is assessed via longitudinal data tracking and website engagement analysis. Google Trends data document the increase of searches for information on marijuana, peaking each November since 2012, most likely due to elections outcomes and related news coverage of legalization of recreational and medical marijuana use. Posts on marijuana have generated over 2.6 million pageviews on the NIDA Teens blog since 2013. In the past three months, 57 blog posts on vaping or marijuana generated 91,000 pageviews per month, accounting for 36% of all traffic to the blog. Organic search accounts for 80% of web traffic to the blog overall.

Conclusions: As trends relating to the legalization of marijuana and availability of e-cigarettes emerge, parents, educators, and other youth influencers need ready access to the latest science about drug use. Thus, for scientists, health educators, and health communicators, crafting, elevating, and disseminating data-informed resources in real-time will be of utmost importance.

Implications for research and/or practice: As student drug use and perceptions of risk continue to evolve in challenging ways, young people and their stakeholders will need science-based information that is current, informative, and easily accessible to help teens make healthy choices. Understanding attitudes and perceptions toward drugs among all audiences is key to informing the development and promotion of fact-based resources. Similarly, health communicators should strive to stay informed of trends, perceptions, and use patterns in their line of work, and craft materials and resources that address these inputs along with other evolving needs of the target audience.