statistically significant increase in the numbers of individuals using designated drivers. Surveys sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 1993 and 1995 found that about three-quarters of those surveyed responded that people should not be allowed to drive if they have been drinking any alcohol at all. These results indicate a wide acceptance of the social norm that the driver should not drink (Winsten and DeJong, 2001).

The designated driver concept and the strategy to emphasize it, however, were extremely controversial. Some alcohol control advocates argued that they may have done more harm than good by encouraging excessive drinking by passengers and deflecting attention away from the social determinants that influence alcohol consumption (DeJong and Wallack, 1992).

In a more recent partnership, researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation, together with a writer and producer of ER, NBC’s medical drama, collaborated to test the effect of health information communicated through an ongoing television drama. They learned that a short mention of an important health issue in an entertainment television show can make millions of Americans aware of that issue. The experiment included preshow, postshow, and follow-up surveys of ER viewers. The surveys assessed viewers’ knowledge gain, their retention of health information, and their interest in health-related stories and actions taken based on the storylines.

Study results indicate that viewer knowledge increased as a result of the ER episodes. For example, after an episode with a 1-minute story line on emergency contraception, the percentage of viewers who were aware of emergency contraception increased from 50 to 67 percent, and 20 percent of viewers noted that they had learned about the issue from ER. This effect, however, decreased to baseline levels 2 months later. Similar knowledge gains occurred after a short vignette focused on a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by human papilloma virus (HPV). HPV is the most common cause of STDs in the country, and it has been linked to more than 95 percent of all cases of cervical cancer. The proportion of ER viewers who had heard of HPV increased from 24 to 47 percent, and 32 percent who had heard of HPV noted that they had learned about it from ER. One month later this effect had decreased but remained above preshow levels; 38 percent of those surveyed reported having heard of HPV, and 16 percent could give a correct description of HPV. Furthermore, the study found that slightly more than half (51 percent) of the regular viewers surveyed were prompted to discuss health issues presented on the show with friends and family, and one in five viewers reported turning to other sources for more information about a health issue presented on ER (Brodie et al., 2001).

Among their conclusions, the researchers noted that although entertainment television is a powerful medium for reaching a diverse and large audience on a regular basis, fictional depiction for the sake of dramatic-