Engaging Diverse Communities in Smoking Research: the Kansas City Experience

Audience: Researchers and practitioners at all knowledge levels.

Key Points: Reducing smoking prevalence requires engaging communities who have been historically underserved including African-Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and sexual and gender minorities; researchers have developed approaches to engage these communities and tailored their interventions; researchers bridge science to practice by involving community members and public health professionals; and a regional partnership of tobacco researchers, public health professionals, and community members can provide a synergistic community impact.

Educational Experience:

Researchers in the Kansas City region will provide an overview of their respective research and efforts to engage four different underserved communities. Two programs are focused on smoking among African-Americans. The Kick It at Swope program is a 13-year collaboration with Swope Health Central, has supported multiple pharmacotherapy NIH clinical trials. The second focuses on working with faith-based communities; funded by the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities. The third is community-based efforts to identify Latino smokers and engage them in smoking cessation interventions and assess the impact of smoking cessation case management and utilization of smoking cessation resources. Fourth, All Nations Breath of Life (ANBL) smoking cessation program is an American Indian community-based participatory research approach to engage and test efficacy and effectiveness. The fifth program works with sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals and includes successful research activities and intervention approaches to engage their communities..

Benefits:

Participants will learn about addressing smoking in underserved communities and partnering with researchers, public health practitioners, and communities to improve health.