tobacco cessation program

The Tobacco Cessation Program is a vital part of the WVDTP.  With a budget of $1.4 million dollars, the Cessation Program funds the WV Tobacco Quitline, the new Save Face-Stop Spit Tobacco Program, a Healthcare Provider Education Project, and American Lung Association’s Freedom from Smoking Clinic Facilitator Training as well as several Smoking while Pregnant Projects.

The WV Tobacco Cessation Quitline has been in operation since July 2000, and has enrolled 34,000 participants from 2000 through 2004.

The Tobacco Cessation Program in collaboration with the National Quitline Consortium is working diligently to promote the National Quitline number of 1-800-QuitNow.  

Building on our Through with Chew Project, administered by the WVU School of Dentistry, the Save Face-Stop Spit Tobacco Program, launched in November 2005 with national Through With Chew Week.

Armed with new ideas and new materials we are now ready to attack the spit tobacco epidemic in West Virginia.

Training for Healthcare providers on how to administer face-to-face tobacco cessation training will be offered in the fall of 2006.  DTP has had some success with the program in the past and looks forward to a great future,

The Tobacco Cessation Program has collaborated with the American Lung Association* for many years to provide Freedom from Smoking Clinic Facilitator training.  After training the facilitators then go to their respective communities throughout the state and offer FFS clinics to West Virginians who want to stop using tobacco.

Recent studies show a 25% smoking rate among pregnant women.  In an effort to address this crisis, the Tobacco Cessation Program is funding several projects.  The S.M.A.R.T. Moms program administered by one of Charleston’s largest hospitals is ramping up now to begin offering services in July 2006. Our sister agency DHHR Office of Maternal Child and Family Health offers the SCRIPT Project during in-home visits through the Right from the Start network.  The Day One Project offered by the WV Hospital Association is providing education on second-hand smoke after the child is born.  The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Office of Nutrition Services will soon be offering Smoking while Pregnant education in all fifty seven clinics in WV.  

The Tobacco Cessation Program is blessed to have a large statewide network of partners.  A few of these partners are a part of the Cessation Advisory Committee who gives counsel to the Cessation Program.  The Tobacco Cessation Program in collaboration with these valuable partners is able to reach the rural population of WV.