Increasing tobacco quitline calls from pregnant african american women: the "one tiny reason to quit" social marketing campaign.

INTRODUCTION

Pregnant African American women are at disproportionately high risk of premature birth and infant mortality, outcomes associated with cigarette smoking. Telephone-based, individual smoking cessation counseling has been shown to result in successful quit attempts in the general population and among pregnant women, but "quitlines" are underutilized. A social marketing campaign called One Tiny Reason to Quit (OTRTQ) promoted calling a quitline (1-800-QUIT-NOW) to pregnant, African American women in Richmond, Virginia, in 2009 and was replicated there 2 years later.

METHODS

The campaign disseminated messages via radio, interior bus ads, posters, newspaper ads, and billboards. Trained volunteers also delivered messages face-to-face and distributed branded give-away reminder items. The number of calls made from pregnant women in the Richmond area during summer 2009 was contrasted with (a) the number of calls during the seasons immediately before and after the campaign, and (b) the number of calls the previous summer. The replication used the same evaluation design.

RESULTS

There were statistically significant spikes in calls from pregnant women during both campaign waves for both types of contrasts. A higher proportion of the calls from pregnant women were from African Americans during the campaign.

CONCLUSION

A multimodal quitline promotion like OTRTQ should be considered for geographic areas with sizable African American populations and high rates of infant mortality.