Toward an mHealth Intervention for Smoking Cessation

Abstract

The prevalence of tobacco dependence in the United States (US) remains alarming. Invariably, smoke-related health problems are the leading preventable causes of death in the US. Research has shown that a culturally tailored cessation counseling program can help reduce smoking and other tobacco usage. In this paper, we present a mobile health (mHealth) solution that leverages the Short Message Service (SMS) or text messaging feature of mobile devices to motivate behavior change among tobacco users. Our approach implements the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and a phase-based framework. We make contributions to improving previous mHealth intervention approaches by delivering personalized and evidence-based motivational SMS messages to participants. Our proposed solution implements machine learning algorithms that take the participant’s demographic profile and previous smoking behavior into account. We discuss our preliminary evaluation of the system against a couple of pseudo-scenarios and our observation of the system’s performance.

Machine learning and algorithmic fairness in public and population health

“…Besides exacerbating inequities, targeting individuals directly can be highly stigmatizing, aggravating health-related behaviours that may be the target of intervention 29 . Thus, while a large body of work in machine learning has focused on targeting the individual, for example towards depression management 30 , self-efficacy for weight loss 31 , smoking cessation 32 and personalized nutrition based on glycaemic response 33 , the possibility of leveraging data and machine learning in efforts that consider the multi-level nature of influence around an individual is an open investigation area. For example, group-based intervention programmes are one of the means to reduce substance abuse by reinforcing positive behaviour.…”

Ambulatory Smoking Habits Investigation based on Physiology and Context (ASSIST) using wearable sensors and mobile phones: protocol for an observational study

“…Primary healthcare used to play an essential role in smoking cessation. But to promote healthcare and well-being of these large at-risk smoking populations at an affordable expense, more and more researchers start looking for solutions through eHealth and mobile health systems, which can deliver tailored counselling and behavioural change treatment in a scalable way 5–8. In the past decades, technology-enabled systems, including short message service (SMS) text messages, self-help websites, self-tracking smartphone apps and wearable sensors, have been exploited for smoking cessation, and they are deemed by researchers as a very promising and low-cost way to facilitate and scale-up end users’ access to valuable information as they can offer service 24/7 without any distance constraints 9–11.…”

Reality Versus Grant Application Research “Plans”

“…The study described in this article was designed to address PQ4: Why don’t more people alter behaviors known to increase the risk of cancers? and to specifically answer the research question, “Why don’t Northern Plains American Indians alter tobacco use behaviors known to increase the risk of cancer?” The study was based on the theory of planned behavior (Ahsan et al, 2013; Ajzen, 1985; Hukkelberg, Hagtvet, & Kovac, 2014; Quinn et al, 2011) and used the phase-based framework for smoking cessation that divides the cessation process into four discrete phases: (1) motivation, (2) precessation, (3) cessation, and (4) maintenance, to guide the intervention (Baker et al, 2011; Collins et al, 2011).…”