QUIT TODAY - A TARGETED COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN TO INCREASE USE OF THE CANCER INFORMATION-SERVICE BY AFRICAN-AMERICAN SMOKERS

Background African Americans have traditionally made little use of the Cancer Information Service (CIS), an information and education progra m of the National Cancer Institute, for smoking cessation assistance. This study evaluated whether a targeted communications campaign utiliz ing strategically placed radio and television advertisements in combin ation with community outreach could lead more adult African American s mokers to call the CIS for smoking cessation information and materials . Methods. Fourteen communities, served by four CIS regional offices, were carefully matched on demographic variables and then randomly assi gned to either an experimental or a control group. Six radio advertise ments targeting African American smokers to call the CIS for help in q uitting smoking were developed and pretested for three different black -oriented formats. One television spot also was produced and pretested . The audio portion of the television ad was utilized as a seventh rad io spot for the general programming formats. These advertisements were placed on selected radio and television stations reaching predominant ly African American adult audiences. Also, copies of a videotape desig ned to motivate African American smokers to quit and to call the CIS f or help in quitting were widely disseminated through community-based o rganizations in each experimental market. The aim was to increase the number and proportion of quitting-related calls to the CIS from Africa n Americans within experimental communities. Results. The call volume from African American smokers was significantly higher in the experime ntal communities than in the control communities (P < 0.008). The call rate from African American men was higher than typically observed. Ov erall, African Americans in the experimental communities reported radi o more often than television as the way they heard about the CIS. Conc lusion. The results suggest that paid targeted advertising, using radi o as a primary channel, is an effective method of reaching an underser ved population at risk. Future research directions are discussed. (C) 1998 American Health Foundation and Academic Press.