Grant Number:	1R01CA292971-01 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Ling, Pamela
Organization:	University Of California, San Francisco
Project Title:	Social Media Support Groups for Adolescent Vaping Cessation
Fiscal Year:	2024

ABSTRACT Tobacco use causes one third of cancer-related mortality. Decades of tobacco control progress are threatened by the promotion and popularity of e-cigarettes (colloquially called “vaping”) by adolescents. Almost a decade ago, e-cigarettes became the most common tobacco product used by adolescents. In 2022, 2.55 million U.S. middle and high school students currently used e-cigarettes. Recently new “pod vape” devices have increased in popularity; they are highly discreet and deliver high levels of nicotine increasing addictive potential. Adolescent vaping is associated cigarette smoking initiation, and e-cigarette use increases risk of asthma, adverse cardiovascular effects, and is likely to increase risk of lung cancer. To address this problem, flexible, scalable evidence-based interventions are needed to help adolescents quit. However, there are few adolescent interventions for e-cigarette use with rigorous evaluation data. To the best of our knowledge, no vaping cessation programs are delivered on social media. In 2022, 62% of adolescents used Instagram, and 50% of adolescents used it at least once a day. We developed the program, “Quit the Hit” that takes place in direct message groups on Instagram to support cessation among mid to late-stage adolescents aged 13-21. The program was co-created with hundreds of adolescents and has been evaluated in a randomized controlled trial. Preliminary data show significantly higher end of program abstinence rate in the intervention arm than in the control (52% vs. 35%). Quit the Hit is promoted using social media advertising and it is administered by expert facilitators. To expand the reach and assess the effectiveness of the Quit the Hit, we propose to develop and evaluate a scalable version, the Quit the Hit Toolkit (QTHT) that can be implemented by school districts, community organizations, and other groups. We propose three Aims. Aim 1. Adapt the Quit the Hit Toolkit (QTHT) for implementation by youth serving organizations, assessing organizational needs and capacities to implement the program, training materials and supports for providers, and resources and guides for promotion and adoption. Aim 2. Evaluate the effectiveness of the QTHT implemented with community partner organizations in a parallel-arm randomized controlled trial. Aim 3. Document and Assess the implementation of the QTHT including treatment fidelity and adaptations, organizational capacity, facilitators/barriers to implementation, and types of technical assistance needed to sustain the intervention. We will evaluate the implementation using the RE-AIM framework. We will use a Type 1 Hybrid Effectiveness/Implementation Design that speeds translation from research to practice by enabling us to test the intervention’s effectiveness while also gathering information on its potential for large scale implementation in diverse settings. We have established partnerships with state health departments, the California State Board of Education, and the Stanford Tobacco Prevention Toolkit which has reached over 2.7 million youth for future dissemination.





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