DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Tobacco use is a major public health
problem in the United States, with 47 million Americans smoking cigarettes.
Over 400,00 lives are lost to tobacco related illness in the United States
each year and cigarette smoking costs our economy
over 50 million dollars in direct health care expenses annually.
While many effective smoking cessation programs have been developed, these
programs often have limited reach, thus decreasing their total impact on the
population. We propose to develop an Internet-based smoking cessation program
based on AHCPR guidelines and empirically validated treatment protocols. The
innovative approach offered by this system provides a powerful tool for
combining brief-counseling and self-change techniques with the most effective
components of clinical interventions into a cost-effective and easily
accessible package. This system will be marketed to HMOs and individual
smokers.
During Phase I we will develop and test a prototype of the eSTOP system and
evaluate its usability through a within subject crossover design, as well as
focus group research. In Phase 2 we plan to develop a final prototype and
conduct a rigorous, controlled, experimental evaluation of eSTOP's clinical
efficacy and cost effectiveness.
PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION:
HMOs and other large-scale health care providers spend millions of dollars each year on
smoking cessation interventions and the treatment of smoking-related illnesses. As a result,
there is a great need for clinically efficacious, easily accessible, and cost-effective smoking
cessation interventions. Capitalizing on the revolution in informatics and communications,
we propose to develop and market a Web-based smoking cessation application that fulfills
these needs.
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- The DCCPS Team.