CTBH Director, Dr. Lisa A. Marsch, was invited to present at a Congressional Briefing, sponsored by the Friends of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in conjunction with the Congressional Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus and the Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse. Dr. Marsch highlighted scientific research conducted within CTBH funded by NIDA demonstrating the promise of web- and mobile- technologies in the prevention of prescription drug misuse among children and adolescents.
At this Congressional Briefing, NIDA Director, Nora Volkow, MD, provided an overview of the serious problem of non-medical use of prescription drugs in the U.S. and the extensive scientific research portfolio NIDA has supported focused on prescription drug abuse. She explained the difference between therapeutic use and abuse of these drugs and highlighted several promising strategies for prevention of misuse of these substances.
Dr. Marsch followed Dr. Volkow’s presentation with specific examples of NIDA-supported research focused on leveraging technology in the prevention of prescription drug misuse among youth. This research included the development and evaluation of a web-based, multimedia prevention program for middle school-aged youth, which has been shown in rigorous scientific research to be as effective as prevention interventions delivered by highly trained prevention specialists. This research also included an interactive, web-based program focused on the prevention of prescription drug misuse among high-school aged youth, which uses technology-based approaches that have been shown to be highly appealing to youth (e.g., reality-television organizational structure, presented in blog-like interface). Technology-based prevention programs offer widespread reach of effective prevention interventions in a wide array of settings.
A summary of this Congressional Briefing is available at: http://www.thefriendsofnida.org/briefing-2013-07.php