Smokers get help to kick the habit

More than 800 smokers in Boone County could get some help quitting, thanks to a $229,142 grant that the Columbia/Boone County Department of Health will use to launch a tobacco cessation program and a prevention campaign over the next two years.

The grant comes from the Missouri Foundation for Health, which is distributing a total of more than $2 million in anti-tobacco funding statewide. Linda Cooperstock, public health planner for the health department, said the grant is well-timed.

“It will provide a cessation service at a time of peak need for the community due to the passage of the smoke-free-grounds policies,” said Cooperstock, who will coordinate the program. “More people are making the decision to quit, and we do not have a consistent cessation program in Columbia. One of the objectives is to reduce the burden of premature chronic diseases, and there is probably no one more significant cause of chronic diseases than smoking.”

The program will begin this month and continue through November 2008, reaching an estimated 15,000 people. It will offer anti-smoking educational materials, counseling, training and free flexible nicotine replacement therapy, according to the health department.

MU Campus-Community Alliance for Smoke-free Environments, or CASE, will teach health department nurses and those on the staffs of major employers in the county how to counsel people who want to quit smoking. CASE is a group of researchers and experts who aim to reduce workplace smoking and to promote smoking prevention programs in schools.

“Primarily our grant team is giving some advice to the health department on how to structure the program and potential target audiences to try to really encourage quitting smoking,” said Kevin Everett, director of MU CASE and assistant professor of family and community medicine at MU.

Everett and Linda Bullock, an MU associate professor of nursing, will help deliver training to health department employees, teaching them counseling techniques that help people plan a strategy to quit smoking and to develop coping skills.

The program targets specific populations in the community. About 4,000 food handlers who attend the training session each year will receive packets of smoking-cessation information. A 10-minute educational DVD explaining the health effects of tobacco use and resources for quitting will be offered before every food handlers’ class and at work sites in Columbia.

Clients of the health department will also be asked if they smoke and if they’d like to quit. If they say yes, they’ll get brief counseling and vouchers for two weeks’ worth of free nicotine replacement therapy.

City employees and college students can also register for the program. Cooperstock said interested people will be able to call a special number to enroll once the program gets up and running.

The health department will track the number of visits by each client, the number of nicotine replacement doses they take and the number of vouchers given. It will also record the age, race and gender of each client but no other personal information.

“We will collect non-identifiable data and follow trends over the two-year period,” Cooperstock said. “We will make follow-up calls to determine whether people have stayed quit.”

MU CASE will also develop surveys to help evaluate the program.

“We will help them to monitor, for instance, the number of people who inquire about the program, the number of people who participate and then, hopefully, learn a little bit about the level of success of the people that participate,” Everett said.

The Missouri Foundation for Health was created in 2000 as a part of a negotiated agreement between Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Missouri, the Missouri Department of Insurance and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. It is now the largest nonprofit health care foundation in the state. It will disburse grant money for the anti-smoking program every six months beginning this month and continuing through February 2009.

The grant will cover the cost of a part-time coordinator, smoking cessation education materials, brief training and counseling, free nicotine replacement therapy, advertising and evaluation. Cooperstock will report to the foundation about the project status every six months.

In 2004, the Missouri Foundation for Health launched a nine-year Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Initiative. It plans to award $40 million to projects to reduce tobacco use in the state.

In Missouri, 27 percent of adults light up, making it one of the top smoking states, according to a Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. The smoking rate in Boone County is 26 percent.

Bullock said that studies indicate the anti-smoking grant should be effective.

“We know from research that health-care providers providing a strong smoking-cessation message to their patients is instrumental in helping clients to stop smoking,” she said. “Additionally, having strong policies in place — such as the smoking ordinance ­­— will also help motivate some to stop smoking and are effective in supporting those who are trying in that they are not exposed to others lighting up, so policies are important in several ways.”

The health department plans to distribute fliers in January reminding people of the new smoking ban that takes effect Jan. 9. It bans smoking in restaurants, bars and other establishments open to the public.

“Secondhand smoke really is a health hazard, and the City Council has responded to the public outcry to address it, ” Cooperstock said. “And one of our first major steps is to offer smoking cessation.”