"Creating Smoke-free Living" for Chinese Smokers and Household Nonsmokers

Audience: Academic, clinical, and community members interested in a smoke-free living health education program for adult pairs of a smoker and household nonsmoker.  Also those interested in serving immigrant populations including Asian American.

Key Points: 1.  The benefits of smoke-free policies can be translated to the level of individual adults to encourage smoking cessation and eliminate nonsmoker exposure.  Current smoking cessation efforts do not incorporate the powerful concept that secondhand smoke harms nonsmokers.  Using grounded theory, we conducted a series of focus groups with smokers and nonsmokers to develop a health education program.  The focus groups targeted the Chinese population (those with less or more acculturation approximating social norms) and the general population.

2.  The “Creating Smoke-free Living” program includes group education, lab feedback on smoke exposure, and follow-up phone calls on action plans.  Group education topics include secondhand smoke harms as the basis of smoke-free policies, as well as tobacco cessation and positive support.  The program components are based on the feedback from focus groups and designed for adaptability within a community clinic setting. 

Educational Experience: We will describe the community-based participatory research process using focus groups, community partner input, community advisory council, and clinical expertise to develop this program.  Discussion to follow with audience members about their suggestions and experience to improve the program or translate it for other populations.

Benefits: The benefit of this program is to translate population-based smoke-free policies to an individual household level through a novel health education program.