Project Exhale: A smoking cessation program for HIV+ MSM Smokers

Audience: The focus of the panel discussion is on the development and evaluation of a culturally targeted smoking cessation intervention for African American MSM who are HIV+. Researchers, health educators, and smoking cessation service providers will benefit from the panel discussion.  Backgrounds include smoking cessation counselors, researchers interested in the development and evaluation of culturally targeted smoking cessation interventions, and HIV care providers. 

Key Points: The key points from the study are that:

1. African Americans MSM who are HIV+ experience unique barriers and facilitators to smoking cessation.  The results from focus groups will be presented to support this assertion.
2. A smoking cessation intervention can be culturally targeted to address these barriers.  Results from feedback sessions will be shown to support the acceptability and cultural appropriateness of the curriculum materials.
3. The intervention has benefits for changing smoking behaviors among this population of smokers.  Quantitative data from the pilot test on reduction in the number of daily cigarettes smoked and 1 and 3 month quit rates will be presented.

Educational Experience: The audience will learn the key points through didactic presentation, illustrative qualitative data, and by observing quantitative results from the pilot test of the intervention.

Benefits: The panel will describe the methods of recruitment, data collection, cultural targeting, and intervention development and evaluation for a highly underserved population of smokers.  A in-depth discussion of best practices and lessons learned will facilitate the dissemination of the study results and the implementation of similar treatment programs in other areas.