Grants Extend Reach of AAFP's Tobacco Cessation Initiative

The AAFP's tobacco cessation initiative, Ask and Act, is gaining steam from two grants and a new push to spur AAFP constituent chapter involvement.

The two grants will be used to entice family physicians to work with their smoking patients to help them quit. The Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, funded Ask and Act in its first year and has provided $173,121 for the initiative in its second year, which began Oct. 1. In addition, Pfizer Inc. provided $165,550 to the campaign Aug. 30.

"Research indicates that about 70 percent of smokers say they want to quit, and more than 70 percent of smokers see a doctor each year, so we have ample opportunity to intervene with our patients who smoke," says Thomas Houston, M.D., clinical professor of family medicine at Ohio State University, Columbus; director of the Nicotine Dependence Program for Ohio Health, a large health care system in central Ohio; and a member of the AAFP Tobacco Cessation Advisory Committee.

"Ask and Act gives family physicians the tools they need to identify smokers, talk with them and take action steps to help them quit," says Houston. "As family physicians, we have all the attributes needed to help people quit smoking. We've been trained in chronic disease care, and we know how to engage our patients in dialogue. It's like a duck taking to water for family doctors to do tobacco cessation in their practices."

The funding will boost Ask and Act at the grassroots level by providing sponsorship for Ask and Act roadshows at eight chapter meetings. Topics will include ways to maximize payment for treatment and counseling, system changes in family medicine offices to increase tobacco cessation interventions and success, and therapies to counter nicotine dependence.

The grants also will help Ask and Act establish chapter liaisons. Twenty liaisons each will receive a $500 scholarship to attend a training program, although training is not required to become a liaison.

In addition, the grants will support provision of free Ask and Act materials to AAFP members -- a shipping charge applies -- and to chapters that request the supplies at least 45 days before their annual meetings. The materials include English and Spanish quitline referral cards, prescription pads and posters, as well as metal lapel pins that say, "Ask and Act -- Your family physician can help you quit." The pins list the quitline number, (800) QUIT-NOW, or (800) 784-8669.