Topic: Smoke Free Public Housing and COVID-19
Organization Name: Lancaster Health Center also known as Union Community Care
Organization Type: Health Center
Location (city/state): Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Special or Vulnerable Population: Residents of Public Housing Communities
Challenges: Fostering community partnerships to address smoking and COVID-19
Promising Practice: My Life, My Quit Program
Smoking is a risk factor for increased risk of COVID-19 mortality. To mitigate COVID-19 mortality rates among smokers, Lancaster Health Center in Pennsylvania, has been collaborating with local public housing authorities to implement the My Life, My Quit Program, Tobacco Dependence Treatment Program along with the PA Free Quitline. The goal of this project is to strengthen collaborations among community health centers, quitlines, and public housing agencies to promote smoking cessation in public housing communities. The aim of this project is to also increase tobacco cessation services among residents of public housing, improve systems and clinical workflows to deliver tobacco cessation services.
The PA FREE Quitline provides telephone coaching services and Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT). Through this initiative materials are provided in over 170 languages, deaf/hard of hearing services, youth under 18, pregnant and postpartum tobacco users, racial and ethnic populations, smokeless tobacco users and other types of populations with tobacco use disorders. The Quitline offers evidence-based supportive services specifically to women that are pregnant and postpartum women who use tobacco with monetary incentives. Coaching is also provided with topics on the enrollee’s history of tobacco use, identification of triggers, setting a quit date, relapse prevention, use of cessation aids/medications and developing a personal quit plan. In addition to coaching, free NRT for 4 – 8 weeks is provided for qualified callers and mailed to enrollee’s home.
The My Life, My Quit program is a free service that is provided confidentially to teens who need help quitting all kinds of tobacco and vaping. The Tobacco Dependence Treatment Program is run by the Lancaster General Hospital system in collaboration with Lancaster Health Center. In this collaboration, certified tobacco treatment specialists offer individual and group counseling to health center patients referred by the health center. These promising practices address partnerships, impact/outcome, and satisfaction.