A phone-counseling smoking-cessation intervention for male Chinese restaurant workers.

We sought to develop a smoking-cessation intervention for male Chinese restaurant workers in New York City that required no seeking out by participants; provided support over a relatively long period of time; and was responsive to participants' cultural backgrounds and daily lives. The resulting intervention consisted of a minimum of 9 proactive phone counseling sessions within a 6-month period for each participant recruited at his worksite. All activities were conducted in Chinese languages. The efficacy of this proactive phone-counseling intervention was assessed in a pretest/posttest design comparing baseline smoking with smoking 6 months after the intervention ended. Of 137 male employees recruited at their restaurants, 101 (median age 40.5) participated in the phone-counseling intervention in 2007-2008, with 75 completing the program with at least 9 counseling calls. We found a linear increase in smoking cessation from 0% at Call 1 to 50.7% at Call 9 for 75 men who completed the program, and we found for all 101 participants a 32.7% intent-to-treat cessation rate for 6 months post-end of program, adjusted to 30.8% by saliva cotinine assessments. The results indicate that combining field outreach with phone counseling over an extended period of time can facilitate smoking cessation for population groups whose environments do not support efforts to quit smoking.

Increasing access to evidence-based smoking cessation treatment: effectiveness of a free nicotine patch program among Chinese immigrants.

Pharmacotherapy substantially increases smoking cessation rates. However, programs to reduce barriers to this evidence-based treatment may not improve access among high risk immigrant non English speaking populations. This study estimates the effectiveness of a tailored free nicotine patch (NRT) program among Chinese American smokers living in New York City (NYC). Between July 2004 and May 2005 NRT was distributed to 375 smokers through two community-based organizations that serve the Asian American population in NYC. Participants completed an in person baseline survey and a 4-month follow-up telephone survey. Using an intention to treat analysis the abstinence rate at 4 months was 26.7% (100/375). Predictors of cessation included higher levels of self efficacy at baseline, not smoking while using the patch and concern about personal health risks. Distribution through easy to access, culturally competent local community organizations increased the reach of a free nicotine patch program and assisted smokers in quitting.

Effectiveness of tobacco control among Chinese Americans: a comparative analysis of policy approaches versus community-based programs.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effectiveness of a tailored multicomponent community-based smoking cessation intervention among Chinese immigrants living in New York City, implemented within the context of state and city-wide tobacco control policy initiatives for the general population. METHODS: A pre-post-test quasi-experimental design with representative samples from Chinese populations living in two communities in New York City: Flushing, Queens, the intervention community and Sunset Park, Brooklyn, the comparison community. From November 2002 to August 2003 baseline interviews were conducted with 2537 adults aged 18-74. In early 2006, 1384 participants from the original cohort completed the follow-up interview. During the intervention period (October 2003 to September 2005), both communities were exposed to tobacco control public policy changes. However, only Flushing received additional linguistically and culturally-specific community-level tobacco control interventions. RESULTS: From 2002 to 2006 overall smoking prevalence among Chinese immigrants declined from 17.7% to 13.6%, a relative 23% decrease. After controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, there was an absolute 3.3% decrease in smoking prevalence attributed to policy changes with an additional absolute decline in prevalence of 2.8% in the intervention community relative to the control community. CONCLUSION: City-wide tobacco control policies are effective among high-risk urban communities, such as Chinese immigrants. In addition, community-based tailored tobacco control interventions may increase the reduction in smoking prevalence rates beyond that achieved from public policies.