Sunday, May 4, 2025
5/4/2025
Greene County Youth Opioid and Prescription Medication Misuse Prevention Project - The Greene County Youth Opioid & Prescription Medication Misuse Prevention Project will reduce the misuse of opioids and prescription medications by youth ages 12-18 in Greene County, Missouri, by implementing activities to decrease availability of opioids and prescription medication for misuse, educate the community about the risks of misuse, and provide youth with knowledge and skills to refuse drugs and choose healthy alternatives. Availability of these substances will be decreased by establishing additional permanent medication drop boxes with local law enforcement, coordinating drug take back events in collaboration with the Drug Enforcement Agency, law enforcement and local pharmacies, providing medication lock boxes to households, and educating the community and medical providers about the recently-passed prescription drug monitoring program ordinance, including how to access it and the benefits that can result in the county as a result of its use. Community disorganization about the issue will be decreased by implementing an outreach and community education campaign. This campaign will include information about the prevalence of, and related consequences from, opioid and prescription medication misuse by youth, as well as evidence-based prevention activities to reduce those problems and how the community can engage in those activities. In addition to the general public, this campaign will target key sub-populations within the community that may not typically identify with opioid misuse but are key stakeholders nonetheless. Examples of these populations include veterinarians who may have pet owners diverting opioids intended for pets, and realtors who may be unaware that medications should be secured in homes being shown for sale. Attitudes favorable towards opioid and prescription medication misuse by youth will be decreased by expanding the implementation of the Generation Rx presentations across middle and high school classrooms and facilitating the Too Good For Drugs curricula among middle school classrooms throughout Greene County school districts, along with targeted messages in the aforementioned outreach and community education campaign. By implementing this prevention project, we expect by 2021 to decrease reported past 30-day misuse of prescription medications by Greene County 6th-12th graders by 2% compared to the reported 8.2% misuse in 2016, as well as a decrease of .5% in the reported lifetime use of heroin by Greene County 12th graders compared to the 1.78% reported in 2016. This project anticipates serving 9,060 youth and adults annually and 27,180 youth and adults over the course of the three-year project. These numbers served do not include those anticipated to be reached by the education and outreach media campaign, which would add approximately 178,000 youth and adults.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).