ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Health Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives)
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Gamechangers: Change the Game for Women in Sport competition.
Recapture the healthy mission of sports and have the locker room be the most important classroom in high schools.
About You
Contact Information
Title
Dr.
First name
Diane
Last name
Elliot
Your job title
Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University
Name of your organization
Center for Health Promotion Research at Oregon Health & Science University
Organization type
U.S. medical School
Annual budget/currency
$1 million
Location
Project Street Address
3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road
Project City
Portland
Project Province/State
Oregon
Project Postal/Zip Code
97239
Project Country
United States
Your idea
Choose your sport: (check all that apply)
Other
If you chose "other" for Sport, please define in 1-2 words below
all high school sports
What approach does your initiative incorporate?
Knowledge/educational materials
Year the initiative began (yyyy)
1995
Paste your video code here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xylFmPo2YR4
news clip from local story on ATHENA in Oregon schools
If your project has a website, paste the web address here:
Plot your innovation within the discovery framework:
Barrier
Girls internalize cultural stereotypes
Insight
Embed sports with other activities
This field has not been completed.
Name Your Project
ATHENA (Athletes Targeting Health Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives)
Describe Your Idea
Recapture the healthy mission of sports and have the locker room be the most important classroom in high schools.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
Recapture the healthy mission of sports and have the locker room be the most important classroom in high schools.
How many people does your innovation serve or plan to serve? Exactly who will benefit?
Currently approximately half of all female US high school students are in sports, cheer, and dance & drill. We would like to see all girls in school sponsored physical activities, and all female athletes benefiting from ATHENA. We have been disseminating ATHENA for four years, and its use is on an upward trajectory. Many states have schools using ATHENA, and this year approximately 10,000 young women will be on ATHENA teams.
Do you have any existing partnerships? If so, please list and describe.
Citizen sector partnerships are the many organizations which have helped us promote our programs, including the National High School Association and its state associations, USA Football, Boys & Girls Clubs, American College Sports Medicine, Society Prevention Research, Endocrine Society and Hormone Foundation.
Private partners include Time-Warner, Inc. and Sports Illustrated, whose Champions Award we won in 2006. Currently we receive major funding from the NFL Players Association, USA Football and the NFL. That funding allowed placing ATHENA in high schools from half of the NFL cities.
ATHENA’s development and study was funded by NIDA, and other government partners include the White House ONDCP, Department of Education, Government Accounting Office and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration.
In which sector do these partners work? (Check all that apply)
Citizen sector (non profits, NGOs) , Private sector , Public sector (government).
How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
By high school, health classes no longer are effective for changing attitudes and behavior. Sports are natural vehicles for bonded, athletes and an influential coach to promote healthy behaviors. ATHENA reduces disordered eating, diet pill and body-shaping drug use, drinking and driving, and sport injuries, while improving nutrition and psychological health. Its effects are long lasting, as 3-years after graduation, ATHENA girls had half the alcohol and other substance use of girls on non-ATHENA teams.
ATHENA is self-contained, with orienting DVDs, scripted lesson plans for coaches and team leaders, and workbooks for other team members. It is easily integrated into a sport team's usual practice activities. We are working to disseminate our programs at all levels. We educate schools about ATHENA and its positive outcomes. Because school have little funds, we worked at legislative levels, with national sponsors (NFL) and local sponsors and through existing funding streams to assist schools in obtaining ATHENA. We have a dedicated support staff to assist schools in their funding and implementation efforts, including local training of coaches and team leaders.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact
Recapture the healthy mission of sports and have the locker room be the most important classroom in high schools.
What does impact/success look like? Please list any tangible measures of the impact of your innovation
ATHENA works. ATHENA reduces disordered eating, diet pill and body-shaping drug use, drinking and driving, and sport injuries, while improving nutrition, psychological health and decision making abilities. Its effects are long lasting, as 3-years after graduation, ATHENA girls had half the alcohol and other substance use of girls on non-ATHENA teams (citations at athenaprogram.com). We have studied ATHENA at dissemination sites, and its positive effects have been substantiated. ATHENA is on the national website of evidence-based programs (http://www.nrepp.samhsa.gov/).
ATHENA is being used. Its implementation is on an upward trajectory. This year, primarily through the partnership of the National Football League, ATHENA will be used by more than 10,000 young women student-athletes. It is being implemented by schools in many states, and our home state of Oregon, recently passed legislation supporting the program. We are seeking funding to place ATHENA in all Oregon high schools.
Is there a chance that your project could change policy (within an institution or government)?
Often coaches and drug counselors falsely believe that athletes are protected from harmful behaviors, when in fact, that risk may be increased. Each time a school adopts ATHENA, it is a new paradigm that changes the status quo. We have testified before Congress three times on drug use in sport, and we have worked with at a national level to enact legislation to deter drug use in sports. ATLAS and ATHENA are the only drug prevention programs specifically named in the Federal Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004. Although funding for drug prevention was included in that law, those funds were not appropriated. We continue to lobby to appropriate those dollars. At the state-level, we worked to pass the Oregon Healthy Athlete Bill 517. We are working closely with the Oregon School Activity Association to obtain funding to place ATHENA in all Oregon high schools.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow the initiative or expand your intended impact?
We formed the Center for Health Promotion Research and take every opportunity to promote ATHENA at local, state and national levels. We have a website and informational materials. We have been featured in PBS and Discovery Channel programs. Publications featuring ATHENA include the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, CBS, and ESPN. We believe that this paradigm, with appropriate measures, could be used in other countries, and we have presented ATHENA at the WHO, WADA and international meetings.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
The Center for Health Promotion Research is a self-sustaining, nonprofit organization. We received the Sports Illustrated Champions Award in 2006, which funded the program for one year in four states. Recognition from those efforts led to partnering with the National Football League. For the last two years, the NFL has funded placing the programs in five high schools in each of 14 NFL cities, with an award of approximately $1 million per year. Schools can purchase the ATHENA for approximately $11 per athlete. With considerable efforts, because ATHENA is evidenced-based, schools can obtain Safe and Drug Free School money for ATHENA, and we also are working to help schools partner locally with supporters to obtain money for the program.
Financing source
Annual budget
Approximately $1 million per year
Annual revenue generated
We are a self-sustaining nonprofit organization associated with a medical school
Number of staff (full-time, part-time, volunteers)
3 full time staff, 2 advisors, multiple school liaisons
What are the main barriers to financing your initiative, and how do you plan to address these barriers?
Education, promotion and participant’s testimonials can overcome barriers. Coaches falsely believe that athletes are protected from harmful behaviors, when in fact, their risks may be increased. Coaches feel they don’t have time, but ATHENA is easy and adds to athletic success. Finally, schools are cash-strapped, and sports and their associated activities often are first to be cut when budgets are cut. Funding efforts are described in prior sections.
What are the major challenges with regards to partnerships?
The current US economy is a challenge when it comes to partnerships. Potential partners often do not have money to spare, no matter how worthy the cause, and that is occurring at a time when schools are finding sport budgets being cut.
The Story
What stage is your project?
Ongoing project .
What was the motivation or defining moment that led to create this innovation? Tell us the story.
We developed a program for preventing male athletes’ use of steroids and other drugs. ATLAS (Athletes Training & Learning to Avoid Steroids) is a scripted curriculum a team can integrate into its usual activities (atlasprogram.com). It uses sports nutrition and strength training to get bigger and stronger without performance enhancing drugs. After ATLAS, we recognized how powerful a bonded team and influential coach was for promoting healthy behaviors and wanted a program for females. However, it couldn’t just be ATLAS-in-a-skirt. Girls want to be leaner, not bigger, and emotional motivations for unhealthy behaviors differ. Disordered eating and diet pill use are bigger issues, and most prior eating disorder prevention programs made things worse, as they unintentionally drew attention to the behaviors and made them more acceptable. The societal issues and media influences also are unique for females. Before designing ATHENA, we did a survey of more than 2000 young women athletes to define and prioritize ATHENA’s components. Those finding led to the original ATHENA studies, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Once it was clearly established that ATHENA works, we have been passionate about bringing science to service and promoting ATHENA in high schools. We have been privileged to work with an amazing group of women and men, whose commitment and dedication to improving the health of young athletes has made more than a decade of this work exhilarating.
Please tell us about the social innovator behind this initiative
Diane Elliot, MD, was principal investigator for the ATHENA studies. She has collaborated with Linn Goldberg, MD, (principal investigator for the male program ATLAS), for twenty years. Dr. Goldberg has five sons, and Dr. Elliot has three girls in her family. Our experience with own families on the side lines and locker rooms helped inspire us and reinforce the importance of school sports. For additional information, Dr. Elliot is registered on the Changemakers website.
(Optional) To be eligible for an additional prize, please select age range
27 or older
 | 163 weeks agoSamundra Paudel said: Thanks Emma. Best of luck in your studies. We would welcome the chance to adapt ATHENA and try it out in other countries. Its ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 163 weeks agoDiane Elliot said: Thanks Emma. Best of luck in your studies. We would welcome the chance to adapt ATHENA and try it out in other countries. Its ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 163 weeks agoEmma Moutrie said: Hey DL Elliot. I have just read all about your project and it caught my eye as i have a strong interest in sport and i am also wanting ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 170 weeks agoDiane Elliot said: Renata, Thanks so much for the heads up about the Women Win group. Enjoyed learning about the important work of Women Win. Diane about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 170 weeks agoRenata Affonso said: Hello DLElliot, I would like to invite you to join the Women Win group at ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 171 weeks agoDiane Elliot submitted this idea. |
