News & Highlights

2009 Get Smart About Antibiotics Week

What is Get Smart About Antibiotics Week?

Get Smart about Antibiotics Week is an annual effort to coordinate the work of CDC’s Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work campaign, state-based appropriate antibiotic use campaigns, non-profit partners, and for-profit partners during a one week observance of antibiotic resistance and the importance of appropriate antibiotic use.

Through a variety of activities and resources, the messages of the Get Smart campaign are delivered. Learn more about Get Smart About Antibiotics Week 2009.

See 2008 for last year's event.

2008 Sentinel Health Education Program Award

The Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work campaign has been awarded the Health Education Day Sentinel Award by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Public Health Education and Promotion Network (PHEP-Net). As part of the 2008 Excellence in Health Education Awards, the Sentinel Award is given to a program developed by CDC/ATSDR or in collaboration with CDC/ATSDR partners, which has influenced the development of other programs and/or standards of practice at the national level; is national or international in scope; and was launched 10 or more years ago.  The award was presented to the Get Smart campaign at 10th Annual Health CDC/ATSDR Education Day on Wednesday, September 17, 2008. The theme of this year’s meeting was “Translating Research into Public Health Practice: The Role of Health Promotion.”

The Get Smart campaign was chosen to receive the Sentinel Award because of its significant growth, impact, reach, and creativity since its inception as the National Campaign for Appropriate Antibiotics Use in the Community in 1995. As a highly successful, innovative and multifaceted national health education campaign, Get Smart has served as a model campaign for other initiatives at CDC. The campaign has been largely successful because of its internal and external partners’ contributions. These cross-cutting collaborations help maximize the campaign’s reach and impact, while providing opportunities to share lessons learned. After 13 years, the campaign continues to evolve with the healthcare needs of the country by addressing emerging issues such as retail clinics and adverse drug events.

PHEP-Net is an employee organization for health educators of CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Each year PHEP-Net sponsors the Excellence in Health Education Awards to honor outstanding health education programs developed by CDC or in collaboration with CDC partners. The awards are presented at the annual CDC Health Education Day. The Get Smart campaign was presented with PHEP-Net’s Distinguished Health Education Program Award in 2003 and the Merit Award for Outstanding Effort in Disease Prevention and Control in 2002.