Learning Objectives: Describe the four key components for a media campaign to recruit African American smokers for a tobacco cessation hotline.
Abstract: Quit Today! was a research project of the Cancer Information Service (CIS) which operates the 1-800-4-CANCER telephone service. A media campaign in 14 markets was successful in getting African American men and women to call the CIS for smoking cessation assistance. The media choices, culturally appropriate nature of campaign materials, strategic timing of the campaign, and linkage with local opinion leaders made the intervention effective in getting African Americans to call the CIS in unprecedented numbers. The results of the campaign were measured using an experimental design.
In the past, mass media campaigns have not been successful in getting African Americans to call the CIS for cancer treatment or prevention information. A widespread belief developed in government and foundation circles (based on repeated past failures), that quitlines were not an appropriate cessation intervention for African American smokers and that a more hands-on, labor-intensive approach was needed. This project demonstrated that if African American adult smokers are approached using Black-oriented media and with culturally-appropriate messages, they will utilize cost-effective telephone quitlines. The results were published in “Quit Today! A Targeted Communications Campaign to Increase Use of the Cancer Information Service by African American Smokers," N.R. Boyd, C.D. Sutton and C.T.Orleans, Preventive Medicine (Supplemental Issue: Cancer Information Service Research Consortium: 1993-1997), September/October 1998.
This presentation will be particularly useful to local, state and national tobacco control programs that want to serve a racially and ethnically diverse audience through telephone quitlines.
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