National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week® (NDAFW), held Jan 22 – 27, is a national health awareness week that offers information on drugs, alcohol, and addiction. NDAFW was launched in 2010 by scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to show teens what science has taught us about drug use and addiction.

This year’s NDAFW theme is SHATTER THE MYTHS®! To support the theme, we reached out to subject matter experts, students, teachers, law enforcement officers, and pharmacists to discuss a variety of topics related to drug and alcohol safety and prevention education. We’ll be sharing this content on our blog during NDAFW and highlighting the impact the Prescription Drug Safety Network has on shattering the myths.  Stay tuned for our first blog, launching on January 22nd.

To learn more about the Network’s impact, you can view and download the National Impact Report, compiled by EVERFI’s research team. The report provides an analysis of data from more than 57,500 students who completed the Prescription Drug Safety curriculum in the 2017-18 academic year. Overall, the findings show that the course positively impacted students’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors regarding prescription drug safety. Highlights include:

• 49% increase in student assessment scores after completing the program
• 25% increase in students’ confidence in their personal refusal skills
• 35% increase in students who agree that sharing their prescriptions could cause harm