Rx Awareness

cdc.gov

Also: CDC Rx Awareness campaign

“It only takes a little to lose a lot.”

CDC campaign launched in September 2017 that tells real stories of people in recovery from prescription opioid use disorder and of people who lost loved ones to overdose. Materials are produced centrally and licensed to states and localities to run with their own funds.

Years: 2017–now
Country: United States
Topic: Opioids
Asks people to: Never start Seek help
Strategy: Fear appeal Testimonial
Channel: Outdoor Print Radio Search Social (paid)TV
Audience: Adults
Initially adults 25-54, the age group with the highest prescription opioid overdose death rate; 2019 additions for pregnant women, veterans, younger and older adults, and American Indian/Alaska Native audiences.

Evidence

ExperimentalUnknown

No published population-level evaluation of misuse or overdose found. In a small online experiment with 137 college students, viewing Rx Awareness videos reduced stigmatizing attitudes and perceived public stigma and increased empathy toward people with OUD (Yang & Mackert 2021). Attitude outcomes in a convenience sample only.

Sponsor (who paid)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control Federal government, funder and creator

Credits (who made it)

ICF Next Creative source

Executions (individual ads)

State health department ad naming Rx Awareness; creative later removed by Meta 2020 · social-paid · meta-ad-library
Local health department ad naming Rx Awareness; creative later removed by Meta 2020 · social-paid · meta-ad-library · 3K - 4K impressions

Related campaigns

The Truth About Opioids 2018
Tips From Former Smokers 2012–now
Stop Overdose (CDC) 2021–now
CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids: clinician rollout (2016 and 2022) 2016–now

Sources

Yang J, Mackert M. The Effectiveness of CDC's Rx Awareness Campaigns on Reducing Opioid Stigma: Implications for Health Communication. Health Commun 2021;38(5):925-934 evaluation · 2021 · DOI 10.1080/10410236.2021.1982561 · PMID 34555999
CDC launches campaign to help states fight prescription opioid epidemic (CDC press release, 25 Sep 2017) sponsor · 2017
Rx Awareness: About the campaign (CDC) sponsor
CDC opioid awareness case study (ICF Next) reference

Research notes

Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: ICF Next (agency case study: 'CDC entrusted our health communications team to develop, test and launch' RxAwareness). Corrected 2026-10-22: agencyId icf-next added. Campaign is distributed through state/local partners, so reach varies by state; look for state evaluations. No CDC-published outcome evaluation found in PubMed. The ICF Next credit rests on the agency's own case study page. ICF Next years left blank: its case page gives none (public-health-pr queue proposed 2017-). Reuse terms checked 2026-10-23 by an AI research pass for #47; not yet reviewed by a person.

Record cases/cdc-rx-awareness.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign