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kutv.com

Use Only As Directed

“Use Only As Directed”

Utah Department of Health prescription pain medication safety campaign (US-UT) that ran May 2008-May 2009, was renewed in 2011 and relaunched around 2015-2016 with useonlyasdirected.org, paired with statewide opioid prescribing guidelines for clinicians. One of the first state media campaigns on prescription opioid overdose; rebranded as Know Your Script in 2020-2021.

Years
2008–2020
Country
United States
Topic
DrugsOpioids
Asks people to
StartStop
Strategy
Policy pairedSimple instruction
Channel
Clinical settingPrintRadioTV
Audience
AdultsClinicians

Evidence

ObservationalUnknown

Unintentional prescription opioid overdose deaths fell 14.0% in 2008 vs 2007 and were stable in 2009; more than 2,800 guideline copies and 120,000 print items were distributed. Uncontrolled pre-post by the program itself (Johnson 2011).

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Utah Department of Health, Prescription Pain Medication Program State local government, funder and creator

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Johnson EM et al. State-level strategies for reducing prescription drug overdose deaths: Utah's prescription safety program. Pain Med 2011;12 Suppl 2:S66-72 evaluation · 2011 · DOI 10.1111/j.1526-4637.2011.01126.x · PMID 21668759
  2. KUTV: Use Only as Directed: An effort to combat the opioid epidemic news · 2016
  3. KPCW: Intermountain Health, DHHS celebrate 41% decline in state opioid prescriptions news · 2025

Research notes

US-UT. Media agency not verified. Ad library: predates platform libraries; search "Utah Department of Health and Human Services" for later work. Outcome set to unknown: the cited result is the program's own uncontrolled before/after report. Corrected 2026-10-22: endYear set to 2020 and later waves added. KUTV (5 Oct 2016) calls 'Use Only as Directed' 'a new campaign' pointing to useonlyasdirected.org; KPCW (Jan 2025) says Utah began it in 2015 and 'In 2021 the program was rebranded as the Know Your Script campaign'; Know Your Script ad videos were uploaded Dec 2020, so the rebrand is dated 2020-2021 (see ut-know-your-script). useonlyasdirected.org no longer resolves (checked 2026-10-22). A May 2020 O'Dwyer's item says Utah's Department of Human Services issued an RFP for a PR campaign on prescription drug misuse (full text paywalled); it likely led to Know Your Script, not confirmed. Procurement search 2026-10-22: no award naming the vendor found; R&R Partners is credited on Utah DOH's 2015 'Get your life back' print campaign (Ads of the World) and on Know Your Script; possible vendor.

Record cases/ut-use-only-as-directed.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign