QUITLINE Helps Stop Tobacco Use, Saves Money
Tobacco users who enrolled in counseling services through Colorado's QUITLINE are six to seven times more likely to kick the habit than those who try to quit all on their own.
These were among the findings released today by National Jewish Medical and Research Center in a report to the State Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership (STEPP) part of the Department of Public Health and Environment. National Jewish has operated the QUITLINE under a multi-year contract with STEPP since mid-December 2002.
When surveyed six months after their first call to the QUITLINE, 26% of callers reported being tobacco-free. Individuals who participated in intensive telephone counseling reported a quit rate of 28%, while 18% those who received only a smoking-cessation guide had quit. (Most experts consider that being tobacco free for at least seven days prior to a survey completed six months after their first call indicates a successful quit attempt. This evaluation measurement is known as "point prevalence abstinence"). Only 4.5% of smokers in Colorado were able to quit smoking with or without outside intervention.
The QUITLINE is available to all Coloradans who strive to lead a tobacco-ree life. Each caller can choose to receive self-guided cessation information, or to enroll in an intensive telephone counseling program delivered by highly trained National Jewish counselors. Information and counseling are available in English and Spanish.
Nearly 6,000 Coloradans from each of the 64 counties called QUITLINE between Dec. 18, 2002 and Oct. 10, 2003, seeking information about and support for their efforts to give up smoking or smokeless tobacco. Of that group, more than half enrolled in the intensive counseling program.
The cost of tobacco use in Colorado is estimated to be nearly $3,200 per year per smoker in terms of healthcare costs, and lost income and productivity. With the thousands who have given up tobacco with Quitline's help, tobacco-related costs in Colorado will be cut by millions of dollars every year.
The Colorado QUITLINE phone number is 1-800-639-QUIT.
Copies of the entire report are available on the Web at http://quitline.nationaljewish.org/colorado_quitline.pdf.
