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Success Story
Simon Truong, 68, smoked cigarettes for 38 years. He heard about the
Helpline from Vietnamese television and radio and wanted to quit for his health
and his family.
Mr. Truong has been tobacco-free for 3 years, thanks to his hard work, the Helpline
and ongoing praise and support from his family. Being tobacco-free gives
him more energy and a healthier life. Simon advises other smokers, "If
you believe you can quit smoking, then youwill quit smoking."
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Smoke-Free Cars Toolkit
The Helpline is working with the California Tobacco Control Program in outreach
efforts to promote the smoke-free cars law that went into effect January 1, 2008.
Local efforts are key to implementing a successful education campaign and protecting
youth from secondhand smoke exposure. TCP has developed a toolkit with useful resources.
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Gold and Regale Salud Cards are Back!
Click here to order these effective intervention
tools.
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Contact Us!
The Outreach team educates health care providers and organizations
with a health focus on the importance of tobacco cessation, while encouraging them
to promote Helpline services to their clients. In order to reach diverse
populations, the team partners with organizations representing communities with
high smoking prevalence, underserved communities and health care provider associations.
The team includes:
Kristin Harms
Jill Macinko
Cherrie Ng
Walter Silverman
If you have any questions or partnership ideas please contact us individually or
via the Outreach
email or phone, 858-300-1010.
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Want to help a loved one quit smoking? The Helpline is here to assist you!
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A Helping Hand
The Helpline is an important resource not only for smokers, but also for the ones
who care about them and want to help them quit. Proxy callers are non-smokers who
call on behalf of a friend or family member who smokes. Proxy callers receive written
materials and guidance on how to help a smoker quit.
Here are some ideas for friends and family members who want to help:
- Read a booklet on how to quit smoking
- Ask the smoker what would be most helpful
- Keep in mind that quitting is hard
- Be patient with mood swings
- Understand that slips and relapse are normal
- Encourage them to keep trying, but avoid nagging
- Make the home smoke-free
- Suggest they call the Helpline
Proxies can play an important role in the quitting process as smokers rely on the
support of their families during this challenging time.
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3 Minutes to Save a Life!
Health care providers can easily and efficiently help patients get on the road to
stop smoking. It only takes 3 minutes and 3 simple steps: Ask, Advise,
and Refer. The details are in the "Help Your Patients Quit Smoking"
pocket guide developed by the Helpline, the California Diabetes Program, and California
Diabetes Educators.
 When health care providers ask patients if they smoke,
advise them to quit smoking and refer them to the Helpline, they double the chance
that those patients will make a quit attempt. Click here to order pocket guides and to
customize them for your organization.
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Dental Hygienists Urge Smokers to Kick the Habit in 2008
by Lygia Jolley, RDH, BA
CDHA Public Relations Council Chair
 The California Dental Hygienists' Association (CDHA)
has been collaborating with the Helpline since 2004 and participating in the Ask,
Advise, and Refer program. Through CDHA's association with the Helpline,
the public has an increased awareness of the Registered Dental Hygienist as a source
of oral health information. As primary providers of both preventive and
therapeutic care, dental hygienists play an important role in promoting healthy
lifestyles by incorporating smoking cessation counseling into the dental hygiene
appointment. Dental hygienists ask their patients if they smoke, advise them to
quit, and refer them to the Helpline. By doing so, dental hygienists have made a
significant impact on their patients' oral and overall general health. In
January 2008, CDHA released a press release calling on Californians
to increase their oral and total health by setting the goal to stop smoking this
year.
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Partnering with Vietnamese Media to Increase Awareness
The Helpline reached out to the Vietnamese community through a press event
held Tuesday, January 21, 2008 in the Nguoi Viet Daily News Community Room. Shu-Hong
Zhu, Principal Investigator for the Helpline, explained Helpline
services and success rates in assisting smokers to quit, the importance of proxy
callers, and why the media is important in generating Vietnamese calls. Caroline
Kurtz, from the California Tobacco Control Program, spoke in Vietnamese, explaining the
new Smoke-Free Cars with Minors law and why it is important to the Vietnamese community. Andy
Pham, a Helpline Vietnamese counselor, was on hand to answer questions, as were two
Vietnamese clients who had used the Helpline services successfully. See Simon Truong's
Success Story featured in this issue of the Helpline Wire.
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The Helpline Welcomes New Staff
 The Helpline is establishing a Tobacco Cessation Center, which
will provide training and technical assistance to help other organization build
their capacity to support cessation. Kirsten Hansen, who has been the
Helpline's Outreach Coordinator for the past two years, is moving into a new position
for the Center where she will coordinate the development of curriculum for web-based
seminars, in-person courses, and other resources on a range of cessation-related
topics. Kirsten can still be reached at k3hansen@ucsd.edu or 858-300-1012.
At the same time, the similarly named Kristin Harms is becoming the new Tobacco
Cessation Coordinator. Kristin has 13 years of experience with the American Lung
Association in tobacco cessation and policy and 15 years of marketing and communications
experience. Aided by Outreach Specialists Walter Silverman, Jill Macinko, and Cherrie
Ng, Kristin will oversee development and implementation of a strategic communications
plan for both the Helpline and the new Cessation Center, and will respond to requests
from the field for technical assistance. Kristin can be reached at kharms@ucsd.edu or 858-300-1011.
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Presentations and Papers
The Helpline is proud to share and work with quitlines
across the U.S., as well as internationally.
Recent activities:
At the European Network of Quitlines conference in Rome, in December 2007, we were
asked to address our international colleagues on ways to improve the quality of
quitline service delivery. And in February 2008, we were invited to Washington,
DC to present a briefing on quitlines to the National Cancer Advisory Board. The
briefing covered what quitlines are, how they reach underserved populations, how
quitlines contribute to cessation research, and how dramatically they have multiplied,
both in the U.S. and around the world, since their inception just 15 years ago.
In Stockholm on April 24-25, 2008, Helpline staff will be among the featured speakers
at the Berzelius Symposium on the Tobacco Epidemic. The Berzelius Symposia
are an ongoing series of international conferences on emerging research covering
a wide range of health topics. Our presentation will examine the role
of tobacco quitlines in bridging clinical and population approaches to cessation.
Recent publications:
In collaboration with our California colleagues Hao Tang, Chih-Wen Shi, and Moon S. Chen, Jr., we report on the surprisingly
strong influence of social norm change in
"High Quit Ratio Among Asian Immigrants in California: Implications for Population Tobacco Cessation,"
Nicotine & Tobacco Research Vol. 9, Supp. 3, November 2007.
We team up with North American Quitline Consortium colleagues Linda Bailey and Sharon Campbell forr
"Tobacco Cessation Quitlines in North America: A Descriptive Study,"
Tobacco Control Vol. 16, Supp. 1, November 2007.
We examine the history and potential of quitline contributions to public health in
"Tobacco Quitlines: Looking Back and Looking Ahead" Tobacco Control Vol. 16 Supp. 1, November 2007.
In "Tobacco Counselling for Pregnant Smokers:
Essential Elements" (Journal of Smoking Cessation,.
Vol. 2, December 2007) we share our successful approach to helping pregnant smokers quit.
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