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Prevention of Substance Abuse: Can Museums Make a Difference?
Author(s) -
Cartmill Randi S.,
Day Lucille Lang
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
curator: the museum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2151-6952
pISSN - 0011-3069
DOI - 10.1111/j.2151-6952.1997.tb01303.x
Subject(s) - pill , intoxicative inhalant , addiction , substance abuse , reversing , significant difference , medicine , psychology , environmental health , family medicine , psychiatry , nursing , toxicology , engineering , automotive engineering , biology
ABSTRACT After declining during the 1980s, use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs is again rising in junior and senior high schools nationwide. A field‐trip program developed at the Hall of Health (HOH) in Berkeley, California, attempts to reverse or lessen this trend by communicating in a museum setting the dangers of drugs and addiction. Pre‐visit and post‐visit surveys collected from 823 students in fifth through eighth grade showed the HOH program had an immediate, significant impact on statements of intent to use alcohol, tobacco, diet pills, downers, and inhalants as well as illegal drugs in high school. Two weeks after the field trip in a follow‐up study of 172 students, those who initially intended to experiment with drugs still showed a significant reduction in their original intent (as indicated in their pre‐visit survey) to use 12 of 15 drugs. The program may serve as a model for museums desirous of reversing the trend toward drug use by young people.