Navigation to Improve Adherence: Tobacco Treatment Program for Cancer Patients: A Pragmatic Pilot Study (Linda Fleisher-PI, Donna Edmondson, Alison Brecher, Carolyn L. Zawislak, Kaitlyn Gregory, Zoe Landau, Kelsey Lachow, Allison Zambon, Cassidy Kenny, Martin J. Edelman): The primary objective of this prospective, interventional pilot study is to assess the feasibility, acceptability and fidelity of a navigation intervention embedded into the clinical Tobacco Treatment Program. Patients in the Intervention phase of this study have two phone calls with a tobacco treatment specialist navigator in addition to their regular tobacco treatment appointments. These calls aim to help the patients overcome any barriers they have encountered in between visits. Initial evaluation of midpoint data has found that patients find the navigation visits to be acceptable and helpful.
U54 Pre-Pilot: Patient Perceptions of Medical Stigma Associated with Smoking among Black/African American Cancer Patients (Alison Brecher- PI, Linda Fleisher, Kelsey Lachow): The primary objective of this study is develop a measure of medical stigma associated with smoking for African American/Black cancer patients. African American/Black cancer patients will be invited to take part in a focus group/brainstorming session to discuss their experiences of stigma associated with smoking that occur in healthcare interactions. Participants will be invited to sort the statements collected during brainstorming into groups of similar statements based on meaning in a process called Group Concept Mapping. Statistical analyses will be applied to the sorted data to create conceptual maps which will help visualize how the data cluster together. The statements and clustering data will be used to develop a pilot measure of medical stigma in the African American/Black cancer patient population. Once validated, this measure can be used as a pre/post measure to test the effectiveness of stigma reducing interventions.
Geospatial Analysis of the TTP (Linda Fleisher, Alison Brecher, Cassidy Kenny, Zoe Landau, Tesla DuBois, Kristen Sorice, Shannon Lynch): In collaboration with the Lynch lab, geospatial analysis was conducted to determine where patients in the Registry and those receiving tobacco treatment live. This geospatial analysis helped us determine what unique environmental barriers, such as tobacco retailer burden, our patients may encounter in their neighborhoods. This analysis will be helpful for future research and programmatic planning.