NEWS BRIEFS: Mayo Clinic Study Finds Community-wide Stop Smoking Contests Can Reduce Tobacco Use

Friday, September 07, 2001

ROCHESTER, MINN. — September 2001 The following stories detail news from Mayo Clinic. They are intended for use as individual stories or as part of a larger story on a particular medical topic.

A local program that offers prizes can provide incentive for smokers to quit and engage others in the community to act as support people of the participants, according to a Mayo Clinic newly published study.

The intervention approach is called "Quit and Win" and has been used in 52 countries with more than 200,000 smokers participating through 1998. Thus far, it is estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 smokers have quit using the international program.

A study of the program's results in Olmsted (Minn.) County in 1998 by Mayo Clinic is published in the September issue of Preventive Medicine.

"Community-wide contests can be an inexpensive and effective alternative to help smokers stop smoking and reduce tobacco use in the local community," says Ivana T. Croghan, Ph.D., of the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Research Center and principal author of the study. "The success of this program demonstrates a high level of support from our community in helping to reduce tobacco use."

Of the 304 smokers enrolled in the contest, 42 percent self-reported continuous tobacco abstinence for the four-week contest period and 11 percent were abstinent at one year after the contest. Researchers found that formal education beyond high school, absence of other smokers in the household, having a support person enrolled in the support person contest, and the type of relationship that the support person had with their smoker were strong predictors of smokers remaining abstinent.

Survey results showed that this contest changed some local attitudes and increased general knowledge of smoking hazards, the researchers report.

All community residents, 15 years of age or older, were eligible to participate in either the stop smoking contest or the supporter contest. A random telephone survey to local households was conducted before and after the "Quit and Win" contest to assess the level of knowledge and attitude changes about smoking.

Smokers who quit for the four-week period, which was verified by their support person and a biochemical analysis of their exhaled air, were eligible for a random drawing prize of $2,000, $1,000 and $500, while the support person could win a grand prize of $2,000.

Contact: Shelly Plutowski at 507-284-2417 (days)

###

###

To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. MayoClinic.com is available as a resource for your health stories.