Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and rates remain stubbornly high among low-income smokers. While low-income smokers attempt to quit, their success rate is lower than those of a higher social economic status. During the next Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods (PRCHN) seminar, Erika Trapl, associate director of PRCHN and associate professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, will describe the process and outcomes of engaging residents in co-development of a multi-level intervention to promote cessation in three low-income neighborhoods.
Trapl’s talk, titled “Breathe Free: Partnering with Residents to Increase Smoking Cessation in Low-income Neighborhoods,” will be held Wednesday, April 10, from noon to 1:15 p.m. in BioEnterprise Building, Room B-03.
About the talk
Trapl will discuss an intervention aimed at increasing the use of cessation supports through media messaging and shifting social norms through adoption of 100% tobacco-free policies by libraries, churches and daycares.
Residents engaged in a series of meetings to inform selection of neighborhood organizations, messaging materials to promote cessation resources and the mechanism by which to share cessation information. Residents also selected the name and tagline of the program, BreatheFree: We Share Air, highlighting the shared responsibility of supporting one another to promote cessation.
The presentation will highlight results of this intervention, with particular focus on resident engagement, policy adoption and partnership with United Way of Greater Cleveland’s 2-1-1 Help Line to promote local and national cessation resources.
About the speaker
Erika Trapl is trained in epidemiology with a focus on health behavior and statistical methodology. She has been an associate director of PRCHN since its inception in 2009 and led the development of PRCHN’s work in tobacco prevention, cessation and control research.
Community partnership is at the heart of her work, and she has successfully facilitated and collaborated with large, multidisciplinary teams, including research teams, that have engaged community partners for most of her career.
She is serving as:
- The principal investigator of the Ohio Cancer Prevention and Control Research Network (a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Prevention Research Center Special Interest Project);
- Co-leader of the Cancer Prevention, Control and Population Research Program (CPC); and
- A faculty associate of the Schubert Center for Child Heath Policy at Case Western Reserve University.
A majority of her projects over the past 15 years have involved interventions to promote health behavior change and longitudinal data collection. Through this work, she has established content expertise with a substantial contribution to the literature in the areas of tobacco control and dietary behavior.
Series details
The PRCHN Seminar Series takes place on the second Wednesday of the month from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the BioEnterprise Building.
All seminars are free and open to the public. Parking is available and a light lunch is served.