African-Americans bear a disproportionate burden of tobacco-related diseases and death compared to the general population. Tobacco kills 47,300 African Americans every year. Relatively little data is collected on 18-24 year olds, since they can legally smoke and chronically underuse evidence-based cessation interventions. Comprehensive policies supporting tobacco prevention and cessation can lead to improved health outcomes. Truth Initiative is supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) as they implement comprehensive tobacco-free campus policies. These colleges serve predominately low-socioeconomic communities, with disproportionately high smoking rates. The HBCU Initiative focuses on task force building, capacity-building for conducting assessments, student-led activism campaigns, education about tobacco products, provision of cessation services, and policy development to reduce smoking rates and exposure to secondhand smoke. This session will outline The HBCU Tobacco-Free Campus Initiative and two technology platforms supporting student advocacy/activism (Ning social network) and smoking cessation (This is Quitting mobile app/text messaging program).
2. • Megan Jacobs and Denise Smith are both
employees of Truth Initiative, a non-profit
public health foundation that runs
BecomeAnEX.org, a web-based smoking
cessation program and This is Quitting, a
mobile smoking cessation program.
Disclosures
4. • National non-profit based in Washington,
DC
• Mission of achieving a culture where all
youth and young adults reject tobacco.
Truth Initiative Broadly
5. • Speak
– Public education campaigns through print, digital, and
social media
• Seek
– Evaluation of Truth Initiative programs + Schroeder
Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies
• Spread
– Community & Youth engagement Activism
What We Do
7. • 47,300 African Americans die from smoking-
related disease annually.
• While the overall use of cigarettes by youth in the
U.S. has declined, smoking among ethnic
minorities remains a public health imperative.
• Targeted by tobacco industry
• Poorer health outcomes
• Lower SES
• Heavier use of higher-risk products (e.g., menthol)
African-Americans + Tobacco
8. • Young Adults have highest rates of alcohol,
tobacco and other drug use relative to any
other age group.
• With 99% of smokers starting before age 26,
college campuses are critical partners to
reduce young adults from starting tobacco
use, and help tobacco users quit.
Toll of Tobacco + Young Adults
9. • Cessation efforts complicated by:
– Complex social/emotional transitions
– Heterogeneity in smoking patterns
• “Limited evidence demonstrating efficacy of smoking-
cessation interventions for U.S. young adults”
• YA are interested in quitting (66.7%) and have made past-
year quit attempts (62.4%) but…
– High rates of failure
– Few effective interventions developed specifically for YA
Young Adults + Quitting
10. The HBCU Initiative
• First of its kind initiative to develop and
implement smoke- or tobacco-free campus
policies on all Historically Black Colleges
and Universities (HBCUs)
• A multi-organizational collaborative project
led by Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr.
Regina Benjamin
• Truth Initiative has established this program,
with our partners, as an opportunity to take
action in tobacco control efforts focused on
youth and young adults
14. • “I wonder who knows about third hand
smoke? I know Concordia College will
know really soon. #tobaccofreehbcu
#SpreadTruth”
• “The total economic burden of smoking
in the U.S. exceeds $300 billion annually.
#Spreadtruth #TobaccoFreeHBCU
#TobaccoFreeBison”
• “I always fake cough when I see
someone smoking a cigarette. I knew
someone would share my sentiment.
#TobaccoFreeHBCU #SpelmanCollege”
HBCU
Social Media Promo
15. • They don’t want me to win because…
• Tobacco advertisements are placed at
eye level in low income communities to
target young black children.
• Nearly one in every ten African American
women report smoking during pregnancy
due to addiction.
• #SmokeFreeFAMU #TobaccoFreeHBCU
#SpreadTruth”
Posts
17. • Twitter and Instagram
• #spreadtruth #TobaccoFreeHBCU
• Results
– 460 total posts on Twitter and Instagram
– 70% of posts through Twitter
– 321.11K total impressions (number of times
users saw the campaign)
• Winners: Howard University and Texas
College
Social media > Twitter/ IG
19. • Interactive
– Multiple scheduled messages/day
– Q&A format
• Can include hyperlinks
• Tailored to quitting progress
– Set a quit date
– Messages tailored to quit date
• Keyword-based support
• Enrollment by SMS:
text QUITNOW to ###-###-####
• Evidence-based method
This is Quitting: SMS
20. Benefit of This is Quitting
School login + reports Custom number Identifier + relevant msgs
21. • The application period is open from March
20th through April 29th
• Programmatic start date: June 1st
• $7500 grant
• Technical assistance
• Toolkits
Current Grant Opportunities
Likely most of you are familiar with Truth Initiative through our national multimedia prevention truth campaign, or our web-based cessation program BecomeAnEX.org.
Speak
Seek
Spread
We speak, seek and spread the truth about tobacco.
1. Speak – our air cover which is our marketing campaign through commercials and provide facts about the health effects and social consequences of tobacco and the marketing tactics of the tobacco industry so that youth and young adults can make informed decisions and influence others to do the same.
2. Seek- through out Schroeder Institute we use rigorous science to identify the most effective means to minimize the harms of tobacco use, measure the effectiveness of interventions and identify best practices for tobacco control. We share findings with decisions makers at all levels so the programs and policies they build will prevent youth and young adults from smoking a research
3. Spread - community and youth engagement. We are committed to achieving tobacco-related health equity across all ethnicities, incomes, geographies and lifestyles. To meet that commitment we train, cultivate and inspire future leaders who can help us counter tobacco’s influence within those communities. And we partner with community-serving organizations to give everyone in the country the chance at a tobacco-free life.
This is a really nice overview for why young adults are an especially important target for tobacco prevention AND cessation interventions. Tobacco Free College Campus Initiatives are poised to deliver on both of these fronts.
From a prevention standpoint, tobacco-free college campuses promote social norms around not smoking, limit ease of smoking, and have been shown to XYZ DENISE LET’S TALK
Traditional prevention and cessation interventions have largely failed to address the unique ways in which young adults use tobacco and the unique aspects of young adulthood itself that need to be considered in a cessation approach.
data shows that about half of young adult tobacco users are social smokers who report primarily using tobacco in social situations or when drinking alcohol. So to the extent that young adults have already begun using tobacco products, prevention interventions are likely to miss the mark… and yet traditional cessation messaging geared towards established smokers also may not resonate with how young adults view their smoking habit.
We’ll be talking today about a novel tobacco-free college campus grants initiative to partner Truth Initiative with Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This program is an effort to address the unique prevention and cessation needs facing young African Americans on campus.
Tobacco remains the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the U.S.
Denise this can definitely be more filled in or maybe we need a second slide
From abstract:
African-Americans bear a disproportionate burden of tobacco-related diseases and death compared to the general population. Tobacco kills 47,300 African Americans every year. Relatively little data is collected on 18-24 year olds, since they can legally smoke and chronically underuse evidence-based cessation interventions. Comprehensive policies supporting tobacco prevention and cessation can lead to improved health outcomes. Truth Initiative is supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) as they implement comprehensive tobacco-free campus policies. These colleges serve predominately low-socioeconomic communities, with disproportionately high smoking rates. The HBCU Initiative focuses on task force building, capacity-building for conducting assessments, student-led activism campaigns, education about tobacco products, provision of cessation services, and policy development to reduce smoking rates and exposure to secondhand smoke. This session will outline The HBCU Tobacco-Free Campus Initiative and two technology platforms supporting student advocacy/activism (Ning social network) and smoking cessation (This is Quitting mobile app/text messaging program).
Evidence suggests that if a young adult does not begin smoking by the age of 26 then it is very unlikely that he or she will ever smoke. Therefore college campuses are a prominent target of the tobacco industry due to the number of young adults they can attract as customers. This puts the 18-24 age group at high risk for initiating and maintaining an addiction to tobacco as well as endangering non-smokers on campus.
Megan to do this slide then hand over to Denise
Today we will outline The HBCU Tobacco-Free Campus Initiative and two technology platforms supporting student advocacy/activism (Ning social network) and smoking cessation (This is Quitting mobile app/text messaging program).
Denise to add
Denise
This program is similar to other evidence-based text messaging programs in that it…
enables users to set a quit date;
delivers scheduled messages tailored to a user’s cessation progress;
allows users to access on-demand support tailored to cravings and relapse; and
has a flexible platform to allow for dynamic messages, such as multiple choice questions that respond according to the user’s response.
This main difference is that this program has been written by young adult quitters, for young adult quitters. App users, text message subscribers, and followers to our social media accounts can submit messages to add to the program.
Activates per-campus versions of certain app content. Enables per-campus reporting:
App uptake and engagement
Text message uptake and engagement
Each school has its own phone number for text message signup – time zone specific, number familiar to students.
We’ve added content to our standard TIQ library specific to HBCU:
Menthol
Hookah
Little cigars/cigarillos
Social justice
Per-school “identifier” - customizable
Denise to add info here about applying for Truth Initiative grants (HBCU, CC)