"Protecting children from secondhand tobacco smoke exposure in low-income families in Philadelphia: Multilevel strategies for intervention"
Office for Research Visiting Scholar, Stephen J. Lepore, PhD
Founding Director, Social and Behavioral Health Interventions Laboratory; Professor, Department of Public Health, College of Public Health, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
Secondhand smoke exposure (SHSE) is a leading contributor to preventable disease in children--particularly those from low-income households--and parental smoking is the primary source of exposure. This talk introduces an innovative and sustainable multi-level community intervention approach that leverages technology (electronic health records, mobile apps) and community resources (clinic service providers) to address parental smoking and reduce child SHSE in low-income families throughout Philadelphia. Prof. Lepore and his colleague, Prof. Collins, developed the multi-level intervention approach drawing upon Behavioral Ecological Models and Social Cognitive Theory. Their approach addresses child SHSE by integrating a system-level clinic services intervention (e.g., pediatrics and WIC clinics) with an individual-level behavioral counseling intervention to eliminate parents' smoking and promote their child SHSE protective behaviors. Health service providers in clinical settings can address parents' "will" or motivation to protect children from SHSE via a brief guideline-based intervention ("Ask, Advise, and Refer"; AAR), whereas behavioral interventionists can increase parents' "skills" to protect their children from SHSE and to quit smoking. Technology plays a critical role in intervention implementation: (a) AAR prompts are embedded into electronic medical records so they are part of clinic workflow and (b) interactive health communication apps are installed on smokers' mobile phones to increase the efficacy of behavioral counseling. Preliminary data will be presented from an ongoing randomized controlled trial, Kids Safe & Smokefree (KiSS), along with a discussion of future directions in a new trial, Babies Living Safe & Smokefree (BLiSS).
Monday, March 9th, 2015, 12 – 1:00 p.m.
Nesbitt Hall, 3215 Market St., 3rd Floor Collaboration Area - Room 320
Light lunch will be served. Please RSVP to Kyong Park, kp573@drexel.edu or 267-359-6037.