Helping Young Smokers Quit

1. Helping Young Smokers Quit Sue Curry, PhD Sherry Emery, PhD Amy Sporer, MS University of Illinois at Chicago Health Research and Policy Centers

2. Topics • What is “Helping Young Smokers Quit” • How will we find programs? • What will we learn about the programs? • Where are we now? - A preview of coming attractions

3. YTCC National Blueprint for Action • Goals relevant to HYSQ • Develop and test effective TX programs • Develop infrastructure for TX research and translation into practice, including tools (e.g. standards for effectiveness & practice guidelines)

4. HYSQ: Project Evolution • Precis developed by RWJF, Spring 2001 • Generous funding from RWJF ($8 million), CDC ($1.5 million), NCI ($2 million) • Primary focus was evaluation of youth cessation programs

5. 4-Year, Two-Phase Initiative • Phase I • Identify national sample of existing cessation resources for youth • Survey to profile programs • Identify real world context (barriers & resources) in which programs operate

6. 4-Year, Two-Phase Initiative • Phase II • Conduct 40-50 program evaluations • Develop tool-kits for program selection, evaluation • Repeat Phase I program survey

7. Project Team • Includes many talented colleagues from: • HRPC • Survey Research Lab • Research Triangle Institute

8. Guiding Principles for Phase I • The Three R’s • Rigorous • Representative • Resourceful

9. How will we find programs? • Take a random sample from the “National Directory of Youth Smoking Cessation Programs” • Don’t we wish!!! • Advertise for programs to come to us • Not rigorous or representative (but resourceful)

10. How will we find programs? • Use snowball key informant surveys in selected communities throughout the US to identify a national sample of existing cessation resources for youth

11. Helping Young Smokers Quit Community Sectors Education Public Health Voluntaries Other Tier 1 Tier 2 Program Informants Tier 3

12. Sampling Methodology • Sample counties or groups of contiguous counties with probability proportional to size • Size measure based on youth population (12-24 yrs) • Counties stratified on four criteria

13. Stratification criteria

14. Selection of counties • 2,453 counties arrayed into 17 strata • Collapsed MSA and non-MSA counties in low SES counties • Collapsed high and medium tobacco control expenditures in low SES/high prevalence counties

15. Selection of counties • 408 counties selected • Selected with probability proportional to population total number of youth in each county • Over-allocation of high tobacco control expenditure counties into 17 cells(30-24-18) • Sample randomly allocated to 4 replicates

17. 20+ 16-20 11-15 6-10 1-5 none

18. What is a program? • Operational definition of youth tobacco cessation program • Tobacco cessation recognized component of TX program • Provides direct services to youth aged 12-24 • At least 50% of program participants are aged 12-24 • Program is not part of research initiative • Program in operation for at least 6 months

19. Management $$$$$ ProgramSelection Providers Physical Location Participants(enrollees) Participants(completers) Follow-up ProgramEvaluation COMMUNITY CONTEXT Organizational setting Program Content

20. Where are we now? • Enter field November 2002 with 1/2 of first replicate (51 counties) • Tier 1 key informant information identified • ~ 500 identified across 51 counties • Goal - finish program surveys by early spring

21. Preview of coming attractions • Methods selected allow us to say something about: • Prevalence of youth cessation resources by macro community-characteristics (stratification criteria) • Whether program content, format varies by voluntary/mandatory participation • Common challenges encountered by programs….