Objective:
Following detection of an upward trend in the frequency of fatal heroin overdoses in Victoria between 2001 and 2003, Victoria’s Department of Human Services planned a campaign aimed at increasing injecting drug users’ awareness of overdose risks and prevention strategies. Stickers, wallet cards and posters featuring five key messages were distributed throughout needle and syringe programs and other drug and alcohol services between November 2005 and April 2006. An evaluation of the campaign was commissioned in late 2006.

Methods:
The evaluation consisted of three independent components – analysis of data collected from IDUs during the campaign, analysis of interviews conducted with NSP clients during the campaign period and post-hoc analysis of interviews with NSP staff and other key stakeholders.

Results:
While key experts felt that the campaign messages had engendered lasting impact for at least some IDUs, these positive impressions were not borne out by the NSP client data, with less than one third of all campaign messages being mentioned by a significantly higher proportion of clients during the campaign compared to the pre-campaign baseline. Key experts perceived the greatest weakness of the campaign to be the delay between issue identification and the introduction of campaign materials.

Conclusions:
Future initiatives in this domain should be designed and implemented rapidly and in ways that are sufficiently flexible to cope with shifts in drug markets which could influence the reception of key messages.