(National Cancer Institute) — Finding new ways to help people quit smoking continues to be a challenge. In a recent study, researchers tried a unique approach: training pediatricians’ offices to provide smoking cessation treatment to parents during visits with their child’s doctor. The approach increased the number of people who got treatment and modestly improved smoking quit rates.
The study tested the effectiveness of a program called CEASE, which aims to reduce children’s exposure to secondhand smoke—and thereby improve their health—by helping parents to quit.
Results of the trial were published August 12 in JAMA Pediatrics.
“We’ve made a lot of progress [in reducing secondhand smoke exposure] in public spaces, but the home is still a place where people, especially children, are exposed to secondhand smoke,” said Yvonne Prutzman, Ph.D., M.P.H., of NCI’s Tobacco Control Research Branch, which funded the study. (…)