$11 Million UW Project Targets Smoking In Low-Income Communities
Researchers will partner with safety-net clinics in Wisconsin and Massachusetts over five years.
Cigarettes. Cigarettes. Photo is in the Public Domain.
A new grant-funded project will work with federally funded health clinics to help people with low incomes quit smoking.
The University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention received an $11.1 million grant from the National Cancer Institute for the five-year project.
Researchers will partner with eight of Wisconsin’s 17 Community Health Centers, or CHCs, to develop, test and sustain improved treatments for tobacco use. The project will also work with eight CHCs in Massachusetts.
The safety-net clinics primarily serve people with low incomes who have Medicaid, Medicare, are underinsured or have no health insurance.
These patients are also more likely to smoke cigarettes. An estimated 22 percent of CHC patients nationwide are smokers, compared to 10 percent of the general U.S. population.
Dr. Danielle McCarthy, co-director of research at UW’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, said the disparity highlights the “uneven progress” made by efforts to reduce rates of smoking.
She said surveys show more than half of CHC patients try to quit every year, which is similar to rates in the general population.
“Quitting is hard, and it’s especially hard when you have limited resources,” McCarthy said. “Smoking is now really concentrated in people with the least socioeconomic means, and that makes it challenging to access care when you need it, as often as you need it, to make the changes you want to make.”
Treatment for tobacco addiction typically relies on both medications, such as over-the-counter nicotine patches or prescribed pills, and counseling.
Dr. Hasmeena Kathuria, head of UW’s center and a pulmonologist, said providers can no longer think about treatment as a short-term effort.
“When you look at tobacco use as a chronic disease, it’s not should we treat them or not, it’s how should we treat them?” Karthuria said. “That’s something that’s really evolved over the years. We used to ask, ‘Well, are you ready to quit?’ And if they say no, ‘OK, in three months, let’s talk about it again.’”
She said CHCs will provide important community feedback to researchers about the most effective ways to reach people and what resources are needed to continue treatment availability long term.
In Wisconsin, smoking prevalence is slightly higher than the national average at just under 12 percent, ranking 26th highest in the country. McCarthy said smoking rates are even higher among rural communities, further leading to health disparities across the state.
She said quit lines are a key partner in reaching people who struggle to access care, either because of location or inability to take time during regular clinic hours.
“They’re available 24/7, no matter what shift you work,” she said. “They are available at no cost to the user because the benefits of quitting smoking go beyond just the individual; they go to the whole community. So we’re working with a quit line to find ways to deliver even more effective care and keep people engaged in that care until they make the changes they want to make.”
People sometimes have to make dozens of attempts to quit smoking long-term, McCarthy said. The new project hopes to explore treating smoking cessation as a chronic condition in need of continued care, with the hope of encouraging more people to keep trying to quit.
New UW project hopes to lower high smoking rates among low-income adults was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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