Last year, AAM approached Washington, D.C.-based education-technology company EVERFI—the leading provider of alcohol abuse and sexual assault prevention training for U.S. colleges and universities—and asked the organization to develop a module to help students understand the safe use, storage and disposal of prescription drugs.
On May 23, The Hill hosted America's Opioid Epidemic: Youth Awareness & Prevention, convening lawmakers, educators, physicians and addiction experts for a conversation about the role prevention can play in curbing opioid addiction in teenagers. AAM President and CEO Chip Davis joined a panel at Washington, D.C.’s Newseum to discuss the organization’s involvement in EVERFI’s Prescription Drug Safety Network.
With AAM’s financial support, EVERFI developed and made available a prescription drug abuse prevention curriculum, free of charge, to any college in America. More than 36,000 students have already taken the course and all involved are encouraged by the very positive results.
AAM President and CEO Chip Davis on panel moderated by EVERFI Chief Operating Officer Tammy Wincup, along with Rite Aid Pharmacy Regulatory Affairs Senior Vice President Daniel Miller and AmerisourceBergen Senior Vice President and Group General Counsel Elizabeth Campbell:
May 23, 2018, America's Opioid Epidemic: Youth Awareness & Prevention hosted by The Hill and sponsored by EVERFI and the Prescription Drug Safety Network
Young adults 18-25 years old abuse opioids at a higher rate than the rest of the population. According to the 2015 College Prescription Drug Study (CPDS), 10.2 percent of undergraduates reported using pain medications for non-medical reasons. Opioid-related deaths among Americans age 24 and under almost doubled from 2005 to 2015, when 3,165 were reported, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The course is producing volumes of data to better understand the challenge of prescription drug misuse in the college community, and to measure the impact of the program. Already, 75 percent of students reported that because of the course they are more confident in their ability to intervene if a friend is misusing prescription drugs, while 73 percent said they now know where to find resources for drug abuse at their institution.
More on EVERFI's Prescription Drug Safety Network.
By Rachel Schwartz, AAM Communications Director