Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116096

Frances Stillman, EdD, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21209, Carol L. Schmitt, PhD, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, 6115 Falls Road, Suite 200, Baltimore, MD 21209, 410-372-2757, schmittc@battelle.org, William Trochim, PhD, Policy Analyses and Management, Cornell University, 132MVR Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, and Warren J. Strauss, ScM, Statistics and Data Analysis Systems, Battelle Memorial Institute, 505 King Ave, Columbus, OH 43201-2693.

The Strength of Tobacco Control Index (SoTC) is a rigorously tested and validated metric that provided a basis to evaluate outcomes from the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST). SoTC is a summary measure of tobacco control functioning at the state-level and includes a measure of program resources (funding and staff), a measure of program components (activities and efforts) and a measure of how tobacco control programs are organized to deliver those components (inputs). This measure of state functioning is important since it was demonstrated that states that had stronger infrastructure to deliver tobacco control and produced strong tobacco control programs, as measured by SoTC, had lower cigarette consumption. The survey has been conducted in 1999, for the ASSIST evaluation, and has subsequently been fielded in 2000, 2002 and 2004 to evaluate RWJ SmokeLess States Program. There are now multiple years of data for SoTC on all states. Data from the SoTC survey can be used to assess and characterize change in tobacco control programs over time. For example, between 1999 and 2002 funds for state tobacco control increased. Our data showed that programs used these funds to increase all their program activities and that the greatest increase in efforts was in the area of cessation. Early analyses of the 2004 data suggest that as states lose funding they are decreasing their tobacco control staff and their overall tobacco control efforts.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) will be able to

• Understand how the SoTC survey has been used to measure state tobacco control programs
• Identify how funding cuts impact state tobacco control programs.
• Identify tobacco control program components that have been impacted by funding cuts

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.