Enhancing resources for smoking cessation through community intervention: commit as a prototype

Of the 17 million smokers in North America who attempt to quit smoking each year, fewer than one in ten succeed [1, 2]. How can communities improve smokers' chances of quitting? The National Cancer Institute addresses this question through COMMIT, the Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation. COMMIT is the largest smoking intervention trial in the world, involving over 2 million people in twenty-two North American communities. The study protocol requires that the implementation of mandated interventions in each community be managed by a Community Board and at least four task forces (Health Care, Worksites and Organizations, Cessation Resources, and Public Education, including Media and Youth). Three required and three optional interventions in the COMMIT protocol relate to the availability of cessation resources and services. The Cessation Resources Task Force, composed of community volunteers, supervises implementation of these interventions at each site. The activities of each task force are integrated with the others in a community action plan. How COMMIT activities enhance the utilization of cessation resources and services and how these services fit into a community intervention is the subject of this article. Descriptions of the study design and evaluation plan, and of the community mobilization process are presented elsewhere [3, 4].