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

Abstract

Précis-City wide tobacco control policies such as cigarette taxes and smoke free air policies are effective among Chinese immigrants. In addition, community-based tailored tobacco control interventions may increase the reduction in smoking prevalence rates beyond that achieved from public policies.Objective-To estimate the effectiveness of a tailored multi component community-based smoking cessation intervention among Chinese immigrants living in NYC, implemented within the context of state and city-wide tobacco control policy initiatives for the general population. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. 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 sociodemographic 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. Methods NIH Public AccessConclusion-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.

Community-Based Participatory Research and Smoking Cessation Interventions: A Review of the Evidence

“…All 11 studies were developed with a marginalized community. Two studies engaged partnerships with low socioeconomic African American communities [10–15], three with Asian communities [16–22], two with American Indian communities [23–25], and one with a Native Hawaiian community [26–28]. …”

“…Shelley and colleagues [21, 22] evaluated the effect of community-wide policy changes on cessation, in addition to a cadre of PHS based cessation programs and resources in the treatment community. Froelicher and colleagues [14, 15] enhanced their 5-week PHS guided intervention (i.e., counseling, nicotine replacement therapy) with tailored tobacco industry and media messages to reinforce tobacco industry targeting to the African American community.…”

“…In other studies, the origination was either unknown and/or originated from the academic or clinical partner. The partnerships were utilized to conduct needs assessment surveys (quantitative and/or qualitative) [10–15, 21, 22, 29, 31, 32], intervention development [10–19, 20, 21–23, 26–28, 30–32], recruitment of participants (10–28,30–32], intervention delivery [10–19, 21–28, 31, 32], evaluation [10–13, 16–19, 24–28,31,32], and dissemination [10–13, 16–19, 24, 25, 31,32]. …”

Moving Communities Toward Policy Change

“…The time invested in building community capacity and relationships will better serve the outcome with improved sustainability and effect, from implementation to enforcement. Combining policy change with another aspect of AA and NHPI tobacco control, such as with culturally and linguistically tailored community programs, can result in a greater decrease of smoking prevalence (Shelley et al, 2008; Tong, Nguyen, Vittinghoff, & Pérez-Stable, 2008). Although communities may need to initially focus on individual behavioral change (e.g., education at health fairs) on health issues like tobacco, public health efforts should strive toward creating policy- or systems-level change.…”

Nursing Research in Tobacco Use and Special Populations

“…Intervention trial results with immigrant groups favor the use of some level of cultural adjustment of the standard intervention. For example, smoking cessation interventions in the native language have been shown to be more successful overall in Hispanic (Shea, Basch, Wechsler, & Lantigua, 1996;Wetter et al, 2007) and Asian groups (Shelley et al, 2008). Few interventions are adapted beyond language use.…”