For more than 20 years, the North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC) has advanced the impact of quitline services across the United States and Canada. Since its founding in 2004, NAQC has convened trusted partners, developed best practices, and amplified the collective voice of members to ensure that millions of people have access to effective commercial tobacco cessation support. 

Quitline programs remain a vital part of the commercial tobacco control landscape. In the U.S., the loss of federal support and the increase in competition for state public health dollars present new challenges. The rapid rise of new nicotine products and the shift toward digital health services present shared challenges across jurisdictions. At the same time, these shifts create opportunities for quitlines to reassert their relevance as essential public health infrastructure.  

In keeping with the importance of these programs, in October 2025 the NAQC Board of Directors recommitted the organization’s focus on state, provincial, and territorial quitline programs and adopted a mission statement to: 

Strategic Plan 2030 emerges from an extensive year-long process initiated with an organizational and community environmental scan followed by input from the NAQC Advisory Council on strategic activities. The 2030 plan is anchored to three strategic pillars that build on NAQC’s core strengths as a convener, resource hub, and amplifier of member expertise. The three pillars are: 

1. Modernization and Innovation – Quitlines need to modernize service delivery and data systems while responsibly adopting new technology. NAQC will support members with frameworks, guardrails, and peer learning to ensure innovation strengthens engagement and reach without compromising clinical effectiveness. 
   
   
2. Sustainability, Partnerships, and Policy – Quitline programs are working to secure sustainable funding, strengthen their policy voice, and plan for fiscal uncertainty. Through return on investment (ROI) and value communication tools, scenario planning, and peer learning resources, NAQC will help build a financially resilient quitline consortium. 

3. Increasing Impact – Quitlines need to expand the visibility, reach, and responsiveness of services through coordinated promotion, strategic partnerships, and data-informed improvement. NAQC will convene members to share tools, promising practices, and community insights to increase impact where it matters most. 

Across these three pillars, NAQC will focus on convening members in ways that encourage the spread of best and promising practices, providing actionable frameworks and data insights, and strengthening the national cessation infrastructure through shared learning and strategic visibility. The approach emphasizes NAQC’s role as a trusted convener and capacity builder, ensuring that state, provincial, and territorial programs have the resources and collective expertise they need to respond effectively to a changing landscape. 

Strategic Plan 2030 builds on two decades of progress in advancing quitlines as a consortium. In 2009, NAQC published three strategic areas for quitlines encompassing increasing reach, increasing capacity to deliver services, and increasing the quality and cultural appropriateness of quitlines across North America. In 2019, NAQC conducted an environmental scan to assess how members and key opinion leaders viewed the future of quitlines, NAQC, and emerging issues. The environmental scan was used to develop Strategic Vision 2025 that focused on expanding Medicaid coverage, reducing disparities, and evolving technology services.

Through Strategic Plan 2030, the consortium will shape modernized and future-ready quitline programs that strategically use technology while protecting program quality and public trust. Programs will diversify sustainable funding streams that can adapt to funding volatility. Quitlines will reach people with disproportionate tobacco-related harm through coordinated promotion and strategic partnerships, and members will have the capacity to use data and community insights to continually refine their work. Together, these efforts will sustain a resilient quitline infrastructure that advances public health goals and improves outcomes for populations most impacted by commercial tobacco use.