A Controlled Community‐Based Trial to Promote Smoke‐Free Policy in Rural Communities

Abstract

The stage-specific, tailored policy-focused intervention acted as a value-added resource to local smoke-free campaigns by promoting readiness for policy, as well as actual policy change in rural communities. Although actual policy change and percent covered by the policies were modest, these areas need additional resources and efforts to build capacity, build demand, and translate and disseminate science in order to accelerate smoke-free policy change and reduce the enormous toll from tobacco in these high-risk communities.

Rural-urban disparities in tobacco retail access in the southeastern United States: CVS vs. the dollar stores

“…Addressing the disparities in tobacco retailers density will require fully funding comprehensive tobacco control and prevention strategies (Ziller et al, 2019). Comprehensive evidence-based tobacco control strategies have shown to increase the effectiveness of counter-marketing campaigns in rural areas (Hahn et al, 2015). Combining telehealth smoking cessation programs with high-impact media campaigns has the potential to increase the reach and effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions in rural communities (Carlson et al, 2012).…”

PhenX: Environment measures for Tobacco Regulatory Research

“…Extensive evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of various tobacco control policies in reducing tobacco use 21–25. In many jurisdictions, local tobacco control policies are stronger and/or more comprehensive than state policies.…”

Creating Effective Media Messaging for Rural Smoke‐free Policy

“…A qualitative methods design was used similar to other studies (Butler et al., ; Devlin, Eadie, Stead, & Evans, ). Four focus groups ( N = 39) were held in two rural counties, purposively selected from 22 rural intervention counties participating in a larger controlled trial to test the impact of a policy advocacy intervention (Hahn, Rayens, Adkins, Begley, & York, ). Each county had one smoke‐free city, but no county or statewide smoke‐free law.…”

“…The guide was adapted from a study by Kostygina et al. () to determine relevant cultural themes and key message features affecting receptivity to ads used during the Smoke‐free Rural Communities project (Hahn et al., ). Kostygina suggested additional focus group topics for the current study and coalition members who had conducted a successful smoke‐free rural policy campaign refined them for generating input for possible new messages (G. Kostygina personal communication, January 10, 2011).…”

“…However, knowing the facilitator could also have promoted group sharing. There may have been a potential for bias toward smoke‐free policy and related messaging because the focus group participants resided in one of the intervention counties in the larger research study (Hahn et al., ). Further, some responses may have been socially desirable given the culturally sensitive nature of the questions.…”