Butting out — with a good buddy
Kick-the-habit program will focus on women who get help from their neighbors
By Brian Hicks
If you want to quit smoking, there's a $3 billion industry ready to offer you any number of ideas on how to do it.
A group of Medical University of South Carolina researchers thinks the real key to kicking the habit may lie a little closer to home, and they are setting out to prove it.
In the coming months, MUSC's Center for Community Health Partnerships, part of the College of Nursing, will begin a multi-year study into smoking cessation that will be a collaboration between scientists and smokers' neighbors.
They will test their program in seven Charleston neighborhoods, and nine in Aiken and Augusta. Ultimately, more than 400 women are expected to participate.
Led by principal investigator Jeannette Andrews, associate dean for research and evaluation at the university and director of the Center for Community Health Partnerships, the program will focus on groups of women who will try to quit smoking together.
Scientists and advisers will work with the groups, but let the women drive much of the work.
"We are using a novel methodology," Andrews said. "We are trying to increase the capacity for community participation in research."
Andrews said that might include support groups that hear from people who have successfully quit smoking, and community barbecues where literature on the ill effects of smoking is distributed, as well as work with certified scientists -- in addition to using such medical devices as nicotine patches.
There already is some evidence that the program works. Andrews led a pilot program of this research in Augusta, and it showed promising results. In that test, three out of four women involved at least cut back on smoking, and half quit.
"Usually about one-quarter of people in smoking-cessation programs actually quit," Andrews said. "This showed better results, and we think that's because of the involvement in the community."
Andrews began the program in Augusta with Martha Tingen, a professor and researcher at the Medical College of Georgia, before she moved to MUSC.
Tingen said a team of researchers in Augusta worked for a long time building relationships to put the program in place. Scientists structured the study based on community suggestions.
For example, the women wanted to hear testimonials from people who had quit smoking. Some of them wanted support groups. A few used spirituality to help them cope with the stress of quitting, not something that's normally found in a scientific study.
But apparently it worked. The National Institutes of Health liked the results of the Augusta pilot enough to fund a multi-year and multi-city study.
"If we see great success, this is something that could go nationwide," Tingen said.
The research will focus on women in public housing, a group that is not usually the target of anti-smoking campaigns. To get accurate results, some neighborhoods will see different elements of the program, but Andrews said they will all get some form of help.
The program will start in one neighborhood and rotate to others, offering several years' worth of research.
While much of the work will be done by folks in the community, scientists will monitor results medically to verify results. Subjects will be tested to see if they have quit smoking, or at least cut down.
The program, which is called "Sister to Sister," is just one program the Center for Community Health Partnerships will lead in the coming years.
"We want to be a resource for the community," Andrews said. "We want to help people quit smoking."
Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com.
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Comments
tc1 (anonymous) says...
This is good and I wish them success. But it is treating the results of the problem not the source. The Major Source of the problem is Getting Children Hooked On The Nicotine Monkey. They start because they think it is grownup and when they actualy become adults the monkey is in control and it is HE11 to stop. Any adult who starts today with all the evidence against it is beyond much help.
BTW I have been a nicotine addict for well over 40 years. I have been really fighting it for the past year with some success, cut way back but haven't been able to go all the way yet.
Don't Start And It Will Never Be A Problem!!!!
August 16, 2009 at 9:12 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
eds777 (anonymous) says...
I was a 2-3 pack-a-day Marlboro man, who became a Christian. Five years after my conversion, the Holy Spirit told me He wanted me to quit the habit, and He said He would help. He advised me that, every time I got the urge to inhale cigarette smoke, to give the urge to Him. I did, and each time, just like with our sins on the cross, He took that urge until the urge was gone from my life. This was in June, 1990. Hallelujah! Listen to see if He is saying anything to you!
August 16, 2009 at 10:40 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oldglory (anonymous) says...
I read some sort of 'official' report which I believe was dated between 2003 - 2007. (Sorry, but old minds are filled with more important things than dates :)) The report stated that all cigarette companies had added more nicotine to the products. I thought it was part of an agreement with our federal government. Am I jogging any one's memory?
I'm a smoker of ummm 50 years, have quit for 2-3 year-periods and, of course, have reverted to that nasty habit. Currently, I smoke 5-10 cigarettes not inhaling (outside, naturally) a day. My contention has always been that it's the amount of nicotine taken into the body. I've also noticed during periods of really difficult stress that I use smoking to calm me.
My questions: so why are the cigarette manufacturers continuing to add nicotine after all these years? Powerful/wealthy lobbyists, aren't they. How can a government (at any level) promote being smoke-free when the 'nicotine specialists' are fueling the addiction and the government is aware of it? I know the truthful answers, as do you all.
"Pavlov's dogs [(pav-lawfs, pav-lawvz)]
The dogs used in conditioned response experiments by a Russian scientist of the late nineteenth century, Ivan Pavlov. In these experiments, Pavlov sounded a bell while presenting food to a dog, thereby stimulating the natural flow of saliva in the dog's mouth. After the procedure was repeated several times, the dog would salivate at the sound of the bell, even when no food was presented." And so are we conditioned to pick up and smoke a cigarette.
(I originally lived in Virginia where tobacco was a livelihood for many, just as it is/was in many southern states.)
August 16, 2009 at 12:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Dharma (anonymous) says...
I would love to see the women in my building stop smoking. It is hilarious to see them out on a smoke break (something I don't get because I don't smoke) and they have a smoke in one hand their cell phone in the other and they are in their sneakers speed walking around the parking lot. I hear them come in all wheezy and think, "Why do you bother?"
I guess I will never understand the perverse pleasure of inhaling a burning chemically infused weed into my lungs. But if it makes you happy.
August 16, 2009 at 6:09 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lillycollette (anonymous) says...
I went cold turkey while the MOTH (man of the house) continued to smoke in my face. When he finally decided to quit I was stuck with an enraged MOTH-in-law who determined that they would interfere in the process and—enable—him to continue smoking!
Quitting smoking is not easy—but some people will go outta their darned way to make it harder than it has to be.
Just keep trying.
August 17, 2009 at 8:30 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lillycollette (anonymous) says...
PS://
The MOTH and I have both quit smoking now.
August 17, 2009 at 8:40 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Dharma (anonymous) says...
It is a shame when you have enablers around you.
I have a HUGE sweet tooth and I have stopped bringing the stuff into the house so when my sweet tooth screams for attention I feed it grapes and tell it to shut up.
SO what dos hubby do? He brings home things he just happens to "find" and never heard of before like Coconut M&M's and Zingers and crap I have swore off and lost 30lbs in the process.
WHy does he do that to me? He knows I am weak.
August 17, 2009 at 3:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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