Celebrating GASO and Announcing the Availability of Data from CDC’s National Quitline Data Warehouse

Dear Colleagues:

In celebration of the Great American Smoke Out, I would like to thank all of you for your work in helping smokers to quit and to thank the American Cancer Society for its leadership in establishing GASO. Quitting tobacco use takes a tremendous effort and deserves a day of recognition and celebration!

Earlier this week, CDC announced that data from the National Quitline Data Warehouse (NQDW) is now available on the State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System. This includes data gathered in collaboration with the North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC) and the state and territorial tobacco control programs. It is the first STATE system data which describes quitline services and callers. Users can view detailed reports on available services (hours of operation and available languages, counseling, and medications), service utilization (call volume, services received, caller characteristics, how heard about quitline, and types of tobacco products used) and quitline follow-up (sample size, response rate, and cessation outcomes). Comparison reports, interactive maps, and highlights reports are also available.

Please note that there are likely to be differences between this data and the NAQC annual survey, especially for information on the reach of quitlines. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. NAQC collects data according to quitlines’ fiscal years, and CDC’s timeframe is calendar years.

2. NAQC asks for ‘unique tobacco users’ for the fiscal year, while CDC asks for ‘new users’ every quarter and then aggregates over a 12 month period.

3. CDC calculates reach using a different metric.

To access data from the NQDW, please visit: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/statesystem/Default/Default.aspx

For a tutorial on using the data, please see: www.naquitline.org/resource/resmgr/news/Nov20How_to_access_NQDW_data.pdf

Thank you, again, for your many contributions to cessation,

Linda A. Bailey, JD, MHS
President and CEO
North American Quitline Consortium