Community-Partnered Dominican Republic Tobacco Control

University of Rochester

Status: Completed

Conditions: Tobacco Use Cessation; Second Hand Tobacco Smoke

Treatments: Behavioral: Tobacco Cessation and Secondhand Smoke Reduction

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT01228916

1R01CA132950-01A2

Details and patient eligibility

About

Tobacco use and tobacco-caused illnesses and death are increasing in developing countries globally, so it is critical to study these countries in order to effectively address the tobacco epidemic. The proposed project will test the effectiveness of community-based interventions for secondhand smoke and quitting smoking in eight underserved communities in the Dominican Republic. The project will also partner with communities and national and international groups to determine whether the methods and interventions from this study in the Dominican Republic can also be used to help other countries in the region and underserved groups in the United States.

Full description

The globalization of the tobacco epidemic poses significant morbidity and mortality burdens, with the brunt of impact increasingly borne by low-middle income countries. Research partnerships between investigators from high-income countries with well developed tobacco control research programs and their counterparts in low-middle income countries are needed to effectively address this global public health crisis. The Dominican Republic (DR) is a key site that mirrors the trends in Latin America: it is a low-middle income tobacco growing country with significant tobacco use and high levels of secondhand smoke exposure, and it is at a very early stage of tobacco control. The proposed project will assess baseline knowledge, attitudes, exposures, and behaviors regarding tobacco use and secondhand smoke, provide a randomized controlled trial of community-partnered interventions around secondhand smoke and tobacco cessation, and develop and implement a dissemination plan for national and regional impact and translation of methods and results to other underserved groups as appropriate. A multimethod assessment approach will be used, to include qualitative community assessments (RAPs), a series of quantitative surveys (household surveillances, community and smoker cohort surveys, and health care provider surveys), and a biomarker assessment of secondhand smoke exposure. Eight economically disadvantaged communities will be randomized to intervention or control conditions in a lagged treatment design; interventions will be developed and implemented based on the evidence base from other countries and from a current DR trial, and on input from national and local DR workgroups using a community partnered approach. The intervention is hypothesized to decrease tobacco use rates, increase the number of smokefree homes, denormalize smoking, increase awareness of and change attitudes regarding tobacco use and secondhand smoke risks, decrease exposure to secondhand smoke, and increase health care provider intervention in intervention- relative to control communities, with differences by geographic and demographic characteristics to be examined. The project will also engage international, national, and local DR workgroups to maintain communication of findings to key partners, host a national DR tobacco control conference with regional representation, and develop other action steps for local and regional dissemination of findings and evidence based interventions, resources, and infrastructures. Finally, the project will coordinate with the University of Rochester Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute for translation of current evidence based approaches and methodologies for implementation in the DR, and to explore whether any methodologies or interventions from the proposed trial in the DR can be translated to underserved groups in the United States. Effectively engaging early stage low-middle income countries in tobacco control research will be critical to reducing tobacco use and the burden of tobacco-caused illnesses globally.

Enrollment: 3,273 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 1 to 99 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria: For main study: adults (age 18 and older), speak and understand Spanish. For biomarker sub-study (hair samples): children 10 years or younger.

Exclusion Criteria: Non-Spanish speaker, younger than 18 years (except for biomarker sub-study), anyone with questionable capacity or clear decisional impairment.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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3,273 participants in 2 patient groups

Tobacco Cessation and Secondhand Smoke Reduction

Experimental group

Description:

Community based interventions to raise awareness regarding secondhand smoke exposure, clean indoor air laws, smokefree homes, risks of tobacco use and benefits of cessation; include talks, healthcare provider training, radio public service announcements and talk shows, tleevision interviews, cessation classes and individual sessions, health fairs, community marches for smokefree spaces, materials and resources for assisting in tobacco use cessation, estsablishing smokefree homes, adhering to smokefree laws

Treatment:

Behavioral: Tobacco Cessation and Secondhand Smoke Reduction

Delayed Intervention Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Assessment only during comparison period (no interventions will be provided over and above any secular trends in communities); delayed intervention will be provided at end of 1 year comparison period