Failure of Intervention or Failure of Evaluation: A Meta-Evaluation of the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign Evaluation

Abstract

The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign was conducted during 1998–2004 and evaluated through a national, four-wave panel study of adolescents (n = 8,117 at baseline to 5,126 at three-year follow-up). The evaluation's results were unexpected and controversial, finding both no effects overall and a possibly harmful effect, namely inducing initiation of marijuana use. A meta-evaluation by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) supported the original evaluation's major conclusions, but the Campaign's sponsor, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), contested both the original evaluation's findings and the GAO's assessment of them. This study presents an alternative meta-evaluation of the original evaluation, concluding that the Campaign probably was ineffective, but without sufficient evidence of harmful effects. However, had the Campaign been effective, the original evaluation would have been unable to determine that fact due to the possibility of socially desirable responding. The evaluation as designed should never have been conducted. A better try would have been a controlled design in multiple media markets, including a drug testing component.