Get Smart Colorado
Colorado mass media campaign (November 2002-February 2003) with outdoor ads, news coverage and physician advocacy that told the public antibiotics do not help colds and most coughs. It was part of the national Get Smart antibiotic program.
- Years
- 2002–2003
- Country
- United States
- Topic
- Infectious disease
- Asks people to
- Stop
- Strategy
- Simple instructionTrusted messenger
- Channel
- Clinical settingOutdoorPrint
- Audience
- General publicParents
Evidence
Quasi-experimentalPositive
Nonrandomized controlled trial in two metro areas (Gonzales 2008): managed-care antibiotic dispensing fell a net 8.8% per 1,000 members in the campaign community (retail pharmacy fell 3.8%, not significant). Most of the drop was among children and followed fewer office visits; the campaign looked cost-saving.
Sponsor (who paid)
- University of Colorado and Denver Health researchers (Get Smart Colorado) Academic, developer and evaluator (per author affiliations)
Credits (who made it)
Not recorded yet.
Related campaigns
- Be Antibiotics Aware 2017–now
Sources
- Gonzales R et al. "Get smart Colorado": impact of a mass media campaign to improve community antibiotic use. Med Care 2008;46(6):597-605 evaluation · 2008 · DOI 10.1097/MLR.0b013e3181653d2e · PMID 18520314
Research notes
Created 2026-10-22 by literature mining (PubMed/OpenAlex); evidence level, outcome and findings are paraphrased from the evaluation abstracts, full texts not read. No credits: no page naming an agency was checked. Sponsor inferred from author affiliations; the abstract does not name the funder or the coalition partners. US-CO (Denver metro).
Record cases/get-smart-colorado.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign