Advancing Tobacco and Cancer Control: Reducing Alcohol Use to Promote Smoking Cessation

This is a developmental study to: 1) create and beta test an alcohol counseling protocol with 25 Quitline callers and 2) train Quitline Specialists to provide an alcohol intervention using at least 100 pilot Quitline callers to ensure that Specialists in the alcohol intervention + standard care condition provide counseling that addresses hazardous drinking with a high level of alcohol intervention strategies and skill. After this phase of the study is complete, a developmental randomized clinical trial will be conducted with 1,948 NY Quitline callers who drink at hazardous levels to compare practical counseling + smoking cessation print materials added to standard care (PC + SC condition) to alcohol intervention counseling + alcohol-focused print materials added to standard care (AI + SC condition). Efficacy data from this trial will be used to determine effect size estimates for both quitdate and 7-month self-reported point prevalence abstinence rates. Reduction in alcohol consumption and reduced drinking as a mediator of smoking cessation outcome will be secondary outcomes. Other mediators and moderators of alcohol intervention effects will also be examined as an exploratory outcome. If the effect size estimates are sufficiently large and medically important to pursue a definitive trial, these data will be used to propose a full scale multi-site large study. If an alcohol intervention is shown to enhance treatment outcome in a large-scale study, alcohol interventions with quitline counselors could be translated for use by the entire NY state quitline and other quitlines across the country. This may increase the effectiveness of quitline interventions and thus has the potential to reach millions of smokers, thereby bolstering tobacco and cancer control efforts across the United States.