Kroger Health Shares Results From Prescription Drug Safety Partnership

Program curriculum aims to reduce prescription medication misuse among young adults

4/16/2023

Kroger Health and EVERFI are educating high school students about prescription medication safety through a joint initiative.

Kroger Health is marking five years of partnership with EVERFI from Blackbaud by sharing updated program results from the companies' joint Prescription Drug Safety education curriculum for high school students. The program works to reduce the number of young adults misusing prescription medications by sharing information and tools that students can use to make safe decisions and understand early warning signs of addiction.

The Prescription Drug Safety education curriculum focuses on educating students and focuses on future behavioral intentions. The initiative now includes 14 geographies across the United States and reaches more than 100,000 students in 1,300 schools. As a result of participating in the program:

83% of students understand various ways to refuse to participate in misuse of prescription drugs
80% of students can identify signs of prescription drug misuse
79% of students now feel confident in their ability to step in to help someone who demonstrates the signs of misusing or abusing prescription drugs

"Through the Prescription Drug Safety education curriculum, we've educated more than 100,000 students, helping them recognize warning signs and providing resources to support friends who may be abusing or misusing prescription drugs," said Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health. "Our goal is to give these students the knowledge and access to resources about drug misuse, empowering them to make choices that will help them lead healthier lives."

Added Jon Chapman, president and co-founder of Charleston, S.C.-based EVERFI: "Our Prescription Drug Safety curriculum provides students with important information about appropriate prescription drug use and how to avoid or recognize the warning signs of misuse. With such an interactive and engaging program design, students are learning information that they can take into their lives beyond the classroom to inform healthy choices for the rest of their lives."

Kroger Health, the health care division of The Kroger Co., has more than 2,200 pharmacies and 226 clinics in 35 states, serving more than 17 million customers with a team of 24,000 health care practitioners. Cincinnati-based Kroger has almost 2,800 retail food stores under a variety of banner names. The company is No. 4 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.