Direct Outreach in Bars and Clubs to Enroll Cigarette Smokers in Mobile Cessation Services: Explorat
Thursday, June 16, 2022
Posted by: Natalia Gromov
Chalela
P, McAlister AL, Despres C, et al.
Direct Outreach in Bars
and Clubs to Enroll Cigarette Smokers in Mobile Cessation Services: Exploratory
Study.
JMIR Form Res. 2022;6(6):e28059. Published 2022 Jun 2. doi:10.2196/28059
Background.
Cigarette smoking and alcohol use are well known to be concomitant behaviors,
but there is a lack of studies related to recruitment of smokers for mobile
cessation services at places where alcohol is consumed, such as bars and clubs.
Adapting recruitment strategies to expand the reach of cessation programs to where
tobacco users are located may help decrease the health-equity gap in tobacco
control by improving reach and enrollment of underserved smokers residing in
low-income and rural areas who are not reached by traditional cessation
services.
Objective.
The purpose of this exploratory study was to assess the feasibility of direct
outreach in bars, clubs, and restaurants to recruit smokers to Quitxt, our
mobile smoking cessation service. Quitxt is delivered through SMS text
messaging or Facebook Messenger.
Methods.
We collaborated with an advertising agency to conduct in-person recruitment of
young adult smokers aged 18-29 years, focusing on urban and rural
Spanish-speaking Latino participants, as well as English-speaking rural White
and African American participants. Street team members were recruited and
trained in a 4-hour session, including a brief introduction to the public
health impacts of cigarette smoking and the aims of the project. The street
teams made direct, face-to-face contact with smokers in and near smoking areas
at 25 bars, clubs, and other venues frequented by young smokers in urban San
Antonio and nearby rural areas.
Results.
The 3923 interactions by the street teams produced 335 (8.5%) program
enrollments. Most participants were English speakers with a mean age of 29.2
(SD 10.6) years and smoked a mean of 8.5 (SD 6.2) cigarettes per day. Among
users who responded to questions on gender and ethnicity, 66% (70/106) were
women and 56% (60/107) were Hispanic/Latino. Among users ready to make a quit
attempt, 22% (17/77) reported 1 tobacco-free day and 16% (10/62) reported
maintaining cessation to achieve 1 week without smoking. The response rate to
later follow-up questions was low.
Conclusions.
Direct outreach in bars and clubs is a useful method for connecting young adult
cigarette smokers with mobile cessation services. However, further research is
needed to learn more about how mobile services can influence long-term smoking
cessation among those recruited through direct outreach, as well as to test the
use of incentives in obtaining more useful response rates.
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