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NTCC Priorities

• 1. Increase consumer demand for evidence-based tobacco cessation treatments and services
• 2. Link tobacco control public policy changes to increase cessation and treatment use and demand
• 3. Promote the inclusion and use of tobacco control and cessation content in electronic health records (EHRs)
• 4. Increase national, state and local longitudinal surveillance of tobacco-use cessation, including quitting motivation and behaviors, treatment beliefs and use, services, and policies
• 5. Expand access to proven, effective treatments for tobacco addiction
• 6. Support an expanded research agenda to achieve advances in the reach, effectiveness and adoption of tobacco cessation interventions across both individuals and populations
• 7. Launch an ongoing, extensive, national paid media campaign on cessation to help Americans quit using tobacco
• 8. Support the increase in the federal and state excise tax on tobacco to expand assistance for tobacco users who want to quit
• 9. Build capacity for quitlines in order to provide universal access to evidence-based counseling and medications for tobacco cessation

National Priority #9

Build capacity for quitlines in order to provide universal access to evidence-based counseling and medications for tobacco cessation

The PHS Clinical Practice Guideline recommends telephone quitline counseling as effective with diverse populations and has broad reach. Clinicians and health care delivery systems should both ensure patient access to quitlines and promote quitline use. The Guideline found that quitline counseling combined with medication can more than triple a smoker's chances of quitting. Every state now has a tobacco cessation quitline, but programs are severely under-funded.

Featured Partner Activity

NTCC partner North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC) seeks to unite health departments, quitline service providers, researchers and national organizations in the United States and Canada to enable quitline professionals to learn from each other and to improve quitline services. Through NAQC, quitline professionals work together to increase access to and the effectiveness of quitline services that help people in their quitting attempts. NAQC's mission is to:

• Maximize the access, use, and effectiveness of quitlines;
• Provide leadership and a unified voice to promote quitlines and
• Offer a forum to link those interested in quitline operations.

The Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health in 2004 estimated that quitlines could reach up to 16% of all smokers each year, with full funding and a national promotion campaign. CDC's Best Practices Update 2007 set 8% reach as a goal for quitlines. However, NAQC's Annual Survey estimates that quitlines currently reach 1% smokers nationally (2005). To attain 8% reach, U.S. quitline funding should total approximately $498 million. Actual quitline expenditures were $43.5 million in 2006.

Since 2005, quitlines have existed in all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico and Guam. But the capacity varies greatly from quitline to quitline based on funding level, services provided, hours of operation, and populations served. Current challenges to increasing capacity for quitlines include:

• Increasing overall funding and diversifying funding sources (e.g. reimbursement, third party support, tax earmarks) for services, promotion and other related activities
• Developing a national promotion strategy for 1-800-QUIT-NOW

To support quitline providers, NAQC develops many resources, including case studies, fact sheets, and issue papers. The case studies focus on describing quitlines' experiences providing cessation services during the implementation of new statewide smoke-free policies. NAQC also released a promotions coordination plan, "Partnering to Promote Quitlines: A Plan to Coordinate the Effective Use of 1-800-QUIT-NOW in National Media and Considerations for Other Promotional Strategies." As part of its Quality Improvement Initiative, NAQC has recently released:

• Standard for Measuring Reach of Quitline Programs
• Standard for Measuring Quit Rates
• Technical materials on how to improve quit rate and reach (upcoming)
• Benchmarking (seeking funding)

All materials can be accessed on the NAQC website at http://www.naquitline.org/welcome.

Other Partner Activities

NTCC partners are currently conducting many activities related to this priority. For a list of these NTCC partner activities, click here.