If They Like ‘Em, They'll Tell Their Kids: Parents' Evaluations of Anti-Drug Ads and Subsequent Drug Discussions with Their Children

Parents can be a powerful force in preventing drug use in their adolescent children. Unlike friends, parents are largely enduring factors in adolescents’ lives and they maintain their positions as critical moderators of adolescents’ risk behaviors. Adolescents frequently cite parents as reliable sources of information on drugs and important determinants of the decisions they make regarding substance use. Recognizing the importance of parents’ role in drug prevention, many campaigns have included elements designed to increase parent-child discussions about drugs. The National Youth Anti-drug Media Campaign’s (NYAMC) central focus was adolescent drug prevention, with parents a secondary target. The current study involves a secondary analysis of the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY)—the survey used to evaluate the impact of the NYAMC. The central goal is to assess the relationships between parents’ evaluations of campaign ads and subsequent parent-child discussion regarding marijuana use.

A structural equation model was used to longitudinally investigate the relationship between parents’ ad evaluations and their communications with their children about marijuana. Over 1,300 parent-child dyads were included in the analyses. Initial analyses indicate that the model—including parents’ ad evaluation, attitudes toward discussing marijuana use with their children, intentions to discuss marijuana use with their children, and subsequent parent-child discussion of marijuana use fits the data (CFI=.970, RMSEA=.053, X²=273.54, df=23, p<.001). More specifically, results of the analysis reveal that ad evaluation is significantly linked to the frequency and breadth of discussions that took place one year later. In addition to the direct path of ad evaluation to discussion, ad evaluations also influence parents’ attitudes toward discussing drugs (β=.11, p<.001) with their children which then also significantly influence their intentions to do so (β =.63, p<.005). Intentions are also directly impacted by parents’ ad evaluations (β =.05, p<.001). Of special relevance is the impact on actual parent-child discussions in the following year; intentions in Year 1 significantly influence Year 2 discussion (β =.23, p<.001).

Together with our earlier research highlighting the importance of ad evaluation on adolescent responses to marijuana prevention ads, results of the current study provide evidence for the importance of research ad responses in prevention campaign impact. It is hoped that this research will serve as a further impetus for research on ad characteristics evoking favorable responses from target audiences that can then influence behavioral outcomes.