Georgia State gets $1.5M to expand ‘iQuit’ smoking cessation tool reach

ATLANTA — A tool developed by Georgia State university researchers to help people quit smoking is getting an investment to expand its reach thanks to funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

GSU’s iQuit Mindfully, developed by a team led by Associate Professor Claire Spears from the School of Public Health, was able to help up to 35% of its participants quit smoking, according to the university.

Now, the CDC is giving the university a $1.5 million grant to expand its audience potential by being “linguistically, culturally adapted to serve Hispanic and Latinx communities.”

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Mindfulness training helps people recognize triggers like stress, cravings and withdrawal and then more ably manage them without turning to tobacco, alcohol or other substances, according to Spears.

“Most mindfulness research has focused on predominantly white and relatively affluent populations, but Spears and her team specifically developed iQuit Mindfully to meet the needs of diverse and low socioeconomic status populations,” the university said.

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Now, the new funding will help them grow the size of the demographics they can help by adapting to the language and traditions of different cultures, in this case Hispanic and Latinx.

“iQuit Mindfully was designed on a text messaging platform to make it readily available and easily accessible, almost like having a therapist in your pocket,” Spears said about the tool. “Even though people know the responses are coming from an automated computer program, they say things like ‘I felt like I had a coach,’ or ‘I felt like a had a cheerleader.’”

Spears said that while smoking rates have declined significantly since the 1950s in the United States, lower socioeconomic status groups still have smoking as a common problem, though it varies by racial and tehnic groups.

“iQuit Mindfully has shown tremendous promise,” she said, “and we’re excited about getting it into the hands of even more people who could benefit from it.”

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