What is the research behind ATLAS and ATHENA?
Linn Goldberg, M.D., and Diane Elliot, M.D., began investigating the reasons young athletes used anabolic steroids, alcohol and other drugs and how to prevent their use in 1987. Since that time their research has involved more than 7,500 high school students. After developing potential strategies they applied for and received two independent research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Those programs, now known as ATLAS and ATHENA, have undergone randomized controlled evaluations involving more than 4,000 student-athletes and tested in more than 50 high schools. The results of the programs are published in leading medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. Today ATLAS and ATHENA stand out as the only proven effective athlete health promotion and drug prevention programs. After ATLAS was initiated in the Salt Lake City School District, the White House Office of National Drug Con
