Partnerships to reduce smoking among the LGBT community
Abstracts
Initial Award Abstract |
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This pilot project is a collaborative partnership between community and academic researchers to evaluate the potential of tobacco intervention services designed specifically for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in San Francisco to decrease tobacco use among this at-risk population. Compared to the general population, cigarette smoking among the LGBT community is highly prevalent in this diverse and socially marginalized population, thus rendering this community at higher risk for tobacco-related problems. But treatment development and research of effective, culturally competent intervention services have not been conducted. In California there is only one LGBT-specific tobacco intervention, a smoking cessation group program called the “Last Drag.” This program, however, has not been widely available to members of the LGBT community, has not offered a wide array of services to meet individual needs of the LGBT smoker, and has not been empirically tested. The absence of tobacco treatment research with the LGBT community pales in comparison with treatment development and research of LGBT-specific interventions for other health risks (e.g., alcohol and drug use, STD/HIV treatment and prevention). It is time to develop and examine the effectiveness of tobacco intervention services developed for and implemented specifically among the LGBT community.
The aims of this pilot project are to: (1) to strengthen collaborative partnerships with a consortium of community-based organizations (CBOs) serving the LGBT community in SF; (2) to conduct joint analysis, interpretation and translation of existing data sets to build comprehensive tobacco interventions specifically designed for the LGBT community; (3) to develop LGBT-specific tobacco intervention services including a multicomponent referral network system to “LGBT-friendly or knowledgeable” treatment providers, and a core smoking cessation group model; and (4) to implement and pilot test LGBT-specific tobacco intervention services. This work will lead to a future Full CARA proposal for a community-based randomized clinical trial of LGBT-specific tobacco intervention services.
The proposed work is directly relevant to TRDRP’s research priorities and goals in a number of ways. Pilot work will establish and strengthen collaborative partnerships between community and academic researchers to develop and improve upon LGBT-specific tobacco intervention services. The LGBT community is a diverse, special population that, like many other high-risk communities, is at disproportionate risk for tobacco use and tobacco-related problems. In the short run, the pilot project will focus on development of nicotine treatment services and collection of pilot data. In the long run, these data will provide the foundation for a community-based randomized trial of tobacco interventions among the LGBT community. Findings from a later clinical trial would illuminate the unique person and treatment factors that shape tobacco use and cessation among the LGBT community. In addition to increasing our understanding of treating nicotine addiction among LGBT, the findings from this future study could be disseminated to other LGBT communities to treat addicted LGBT tobacco users elsewhere in California and the U.S. |
