The workplace is recognized as an appropriate site for smoking cessation efforts, but little is known about promoting cessation at smaller worksites. The goal of the present study was to identify strategies for promoting smoking cessation in worksites employing 10-100 workers. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 22 employers in small businesses in the manufacturing-labor and hospitality-service sectors; and eight focus groups were conducted with 59 smokers employed in these sectors. Employers mentioned practical barriers to implementing cessation activities and reluctance to intervene in employees' personal health decisions. Nevertheless, both employers and smokers thought it was desirable and appropriate for employers to promote cessation resources to people who want to quit. Discrepancies existed between the worksite activities favored by employers and those endorsed as potentially useful by smokers. Smokers expressed interest in incentive programs, contests, and nicotine replacement products; employers favored providing information. Both groups were generally unaware of smoking cessation resources available through health plans or in the community. Results suggest that interventions should attempt to increase knowledge about available cessation resources and support for cessation at the workplace. Contests, incentives, and free samples of nicotine replacement products might be feasible and effective for promoting cessation.

An advisory group constructed from within the community where a program evaluation is conducted can be an invaluable resource to an evaluator, particularly if the evaluator is an outsider and of a different culture. The author identifies useful roles that advisory groups have played in his organization's evaluations, and explores advisory group selection criteria, processes for identifying, vetting, and recruiting potential members who meet these criteria, and recruitment-related pitfalls. Shortcomings of advisory groups in these contexts are discussed. The authors examine dos, don'ts, and lessons learned from working effectively with advisory groups in diverse cultural contexts; for example, understanding and appreciating unfamiliar styles of discourse and patterns of interaction and how to adapt to these. Differences in age, gender, position, social status, education, literacy, national origin, dialect, degree of assimilation, political affiliation, clan membership, knowledge of English, and comfort with European-American manners and customs are all at play.

No abstract