Targeting smoking cessation to high prevalence communities: outcomes from a pilot intervention for gay men

Cigarette smoking prevalence among gay men is twice that of population levels. A pilot community-level intervention was developed and evaluated aiming to meet UK Government cessation and cancer prevention targets.

Four 7-week withdrawal-oriented treatment groups combined nicotine replacement therapy with peer support. Self-report and carbon monoxide register data were collected at baseline and 7 weeks. N = 98 gay men were recruited through community newspapers and organisations in London UK.

At 7 weeks, n = 44 (76%) were confirmed as quit using standard UK Government National Health Service monitoring forms. In multivariate analysis the single significant baseline variable associated with cessation was previous number of attempts at quitting (OR 1.48, p = 0.04).

This tailored community-level intervention successfully recruited a high-prevalence group, and the outcome data compares very favourably to national monitoring data (which reports an average of 53% success). Implications for national targeted services are considered.