The Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has contracted with the Center for Community Health Development to create an outreach plan promoting the Texas Tobacco QuitLine and to evaluate the implementation of “The Last Drag” program in four sites across the state of Texas. Dr. Whitney Garney, CCHD Research and Evaluation Associate and Dr. Idethia “Shevon” Harvey, a CCHD affiliated faculty member from the Department of Health and Kinesiology will Co-PI the three-year project. Ms. Angela Alaniz, CCHD Administrative Director, and Carlos Pavao, a doctoral student at the School of Public Health, will serve as a community engagement facilitators.
DSHS is seeking to increase awareness and use of the Texas Tobacco Quit Line (Quit Line), a free and confidential counseling service, amongst Hispanic/Latino and LGBT populations. The CCHD project team will initially hold focus groups to obtain feedback on the promotion of and relevant communication channels for reaching the target population. Information gathered from the focus groups will be utilized to develop the stateside Quit Line promotional efforts.
For The Last Drag program, CCHD will fund four organizations across the state who will be responsible for program implementation. Upon the conclusion of the Last Drag program, an evidence-based program designed to assist LGBT individuals with smoking cessation, the CCHD team will evaluate the effectiveness of the program and the present the findings to DSHS.