Tobacco Cessation in Public Housing

The inequity in cessation resources is at forefront in the recently enacted nationwide smoking ban in public housing facilities. The critical component lacking from the federal decree was a practical smoking cessation strategy to address the real-world needs of active smokers who maintain cigarette usage. The investigator's proposal is ideally situated for this contemporary moment when low-income smokers in public housing are signing leases describing the potential for smoking-related evictions and thus at least contemplating smoking modification. The investigator's project is centered around the residents of Baltimore City Public Housing which is among the larger-sized U.S. public housing agencies. Using a human-centered design (HCD) approach, the investigators are refining and testing a community-centric cessation strategy defined by two core elements: a) durable and jointly linked community/hospital infrastructure systems (remote cessation specialist staffing and drug supplies) and strong on-site (public housing) residential leadership commitment to cessation improvement. These dual features, along with adaptable elements that can be modified to a variety of local/national housing settings, defines how the investigator's project will overcome the implementation gaps defining failed smoking cessation efforts in lower-income settings. The objective of this project is to test the feasibility of the intervention package among local housing contextual factors that could impact both the acceptability and adoptability of the investigator's project. Using a collection of formative and implementation evaluation measures, the investigator's academic-community partnership project is well positioned to create an adaptable and customizable intervention that can be scaled in similar housing populations.