Media campaigns for the prevention of illicit drug use in young people

Mass-media campaigns in combination with school-based, community-based or national programmes were found in a systematic review (Ferri et al., 2013, 23 studies, N= 188 934) to have no statistically significant different effect in:

• reducing substance use 
  • pooled results of 5 RCTs (N = 5470) show no effect of media campaign intervention (standardised mean difference (SMD) -0.02; 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.15 to 0.12)
  • pooled results of 4 out of 5 ITS studies (N = 26 405) focusing  on methamphetamine use showed  a reduction only in past-year prevalence of methamphetamine use among 12 to 17 years old
  • a further 5 studies (N = 151 508), which could not be included in meta-analyses, reported a drug use outcome with varied results including a clear iatrogenic effect in one case)

Another systematic review (Stead et al 2019) of the effectiveness of mass-media campaigns to communicate public health messages found no evidence of impact on illicit drug behaviours.