Problem/Objective: Little is known about public perceptions about who, besides healthcare providers, is appropriate to intervene with a tobacco user. As healthcare providers struggle to deliver even brief interventions to all tobacco users, there is a need to better understand public perceptions of non-medical tobacco cessation interventionists.

Methods: The Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control (SCS-TC) is an annual survey of US adults' attitudes and practices regarding tobacco control. The 2003 SCS-TC respondents (n=3010) were queried about the appropriateness of teachers, child care workers, law enforcement, human resources (HR)/manager or clergy acting as cessation interventionists. To compare attitudes of the Arizona population with a national sample, the same set of questions were administered to the jury pool (n=199), of Pima County, AZ, the site of a large trial of community-based brief tobacco cessation intervention training for lay persons.

Results: The majority of SCS-TC respondents agreed interventions by non-medical persons were appropriate (74.2 - 87.9% agreement, depending on occupation). Percentage agreement scores varied significantly with age, gender, smoking status, and rural vs. urban residence, but not education level. In the Arizona sample, agreement was highest for teachers and childcare workers, and lowest for law enforcement.

Conclusions: The general public perceives a range of non-clinical occupations to be appropriate tobacco cessation interventionists. If tobacco cessation brief intervention training were widely available, large numbers of non-medical interventionists could become cessation resources for their communities. These results suggest the general public would be receptive to non-medical tobacco cessation interventionists' efforts to help tobacco users quit.