Sample Intervention Maps

Sample Intervention Map #1

Problem: Teens are abusing Rx and OTC medicines in our community.

Root Cause: Availability

Local Condition: Teens and young people are obtaining Rx and OTC medications from their family and friends.

Potential target audiences: Health care professionals—including doctors and dentists, faith- and community-based leaders, law enforcement officers, educators, counselors, parents and parent organizations, student leaders, senior citizen organizations, homeowners associations and realtors and legislators.

Category	Strategy
Provide Information	Develop and implement an education campaign that focus on the importance of Not sharing medicines. Proper storage and disposal strategies. Create a social media campaign that focuses on medicine safe use. Involve youth in creating viral videos. Promote them widely through YouTube, Facebook and Vine.
Enhance Skills	Collaborate with health care partners to provide Rx abuse prevention. Offer training at community health fairs, senior center events, hospital open houses, brown bag lunch presentations, community forums, formal training events and webinars. Develop and/or integrate existing Rx abuse prevention modules for elementary, middle and high school-aged students.
Provide Support	Support the development and maintenance of an Rx abuse hotline, speakers’ bureau and resource library. Support and promote the initiation of drug-free activities. Create and help sustain mentoring peer group initiatives and activities, including Rx abuse recovery programs. Establish relationships and patient referral strategies with treatment programs that address teen medicine abuse. Create a social media support presence.
Enhance Access / Reduce Barriers	Make drug take-back programs even more accessible than they currently are. Regularly promote their use at doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics and retail stores. Make sure homeowners prevent access to their prescription and OTC medications when strangers are in and around their homes.
Change Consequences	Incentivize health care professionals who educate their patients about the dangers associated with sharing medications. Publically recognize organizations and individuals for being active partners in preventing Rx and OTC abuse. Launch activities during national commemorative months (e.g., National Medicine Awareness Month, National Recovery Month, National Take-Back Days).
Change Physical Design	Collaborate with local builders on creating Rx safe boxes in new homes. Encourage parents and adult caregivers to prohibit access to online pharmacies through the use of parental blocks. Monitor young people’s activities to make the environment less conducive to sharing medications. Support the use of tamper-proof prescription pads.
Modify/Change Policies	Support formalized reporting policies and practices among health care providers, pharmacists and law enforcement officers. Collaborate with secondary and post-secondary school administrators to ensure that Rx abuse prevention policies are strictly enforced. Help ensure that screening and brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT) is accessible to students.

Sample Intervention Map #2

Problem: Teens are abusing Rx and OTC medicines in our community.

Root Cause: Availability

Local Condition: Doctors are overprescribing medications in our community. Over the past year, ER data indicate a 30 percent rise in the incidence of prescription abuse-related problems involving teens and young adults. When asked, a significant portion of patients indicate that they have obtained their medications from doctors who have given them far more medicine than was needed to treat a particular problem.

Potential target audiences: Health care professionals, hospital administrators, parents, pharmacists, medical and pharmacy schools and emergency walk-in medical facilities.

Category	Strategy
Provide Information	Place articles and opinion editorials into community bulletins, local newspapers and other publications (paper and virtual). Provide information to parents about the problem of overprescribing and potential results. Engage health care professionals in discussions about overprescribing and help clarify their role in preventing the potential results of this practice.
Enhance Skills	Conduct training with local medical and pharmacy schools and medical associations. Collaborate with them on crafting viable solutions—including proper prescribing and medicine disposal strategies. Supply training to parents and adult caregivers on how to talk to teens about proper medicine use, and the dangers of taking medications that are not prescribed to you.
Provide Support	Become a trusted and reliable Rx abuse prevention and treatment referral resource for health care professionals in your community. Supply patient-related materials that can be branded by doctors’ offices, hospitals and clinics that stress the importance of taking medications as prescribed and properly discarding medications after they are no longer needed.
Enhance Access / Reduce Barriers	Consider hosting a dialogue that addresses the intersection between western and alternative medicine, helping to provide patients with a wider variety of treatment options. Collaborate with law enforcement personnel and health care professionals on creating community-specific drug disposal programs.
Change Consequences	Collaborate with local government officials to Officially recognize health care partners that follow prescribing practices that prevent Rx abuse. Promote the use of disincentives (prescriber losing his/her license) for doctors and other health care professionals who carry out improper prescribing practices. Incentivize families for properly disposing unused medications (offer free medicine lock boxes, gift cards, movie tickets).
Change Physical Design	Collaborate with local businesses and health care partners to supply medicine lock boxes to patients. Provide co-branded materials to your health care partners about the importance of proper medicine use, storage and disposal.
Modify/Change Policies	Support the passage and utilization of: Prescription monitoring programs (PMP) and model state drug laws. Drug take-back and disposal legislation. Statutes that support increased penalties against doctors who practice unscrupulous prescribing practices. Laws that increase prosecution of those involved in doctor shopping. At the same time, encourage practices that increase treatment availability for Rx abuse and addiction. Laws and practices that reward health care providers for being willing and eager partners in preventing Rx abuse. Encourage your health care partners to collaborate with neighboring pharmacies, doctors’ offices and hospitals outside of your community. Promote the use of screening and brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT) for teens and also support increased access to treatment that targets this population. Help ensure that Rx abuse prevention becomes an integral part of the curriculum that trains doctors, pharmacists, law enforcement officers and emergency responders.