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A comprehensive national minority intervention in tobacco control

Tobacco use is a major cancer risk among minorities, as evidenced by their high cancer mortality rates compared with white populations. Prior public health prevention efforts have concentrated on affecting individual behavior change through education and smoking‐cessation techniques. The American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST) project, which is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, is a 7‐year research and applications project designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of coalition‐based policy interventions on smoking prevention and cessation. ASSIST places major emphasis on the involvement of minority populations in this project as well as all women and youth. Minority involvement is evident through 1) representation and leadership on all levels of ASSIST policy development and administration; 2) inclusion of minority components in all national ASSIST conferences, including minority recruitment, coalition development, and sustainability design; 3) provision of specialized technical assistance and training to the 17 states by the ASSIST Coordinating Center; and 4) incorporation of minority specific activities in the various ASSIST states. Outcome evaluation of the effectiveness of the ASSIST approach will be conducted after the project's completion in 1998. However, early indicators show a marked increase in minority participation. Between 1994 and 1996, there has been an almost four‐fold increase in proposed activities to reach underserved and minority communities. Most ASSIST states have formed multicultural coalitions. These results show that 1) intervention models emphasizing community‐based policy activities in cancer prevention can address multicultural concerns successfully, 2) linkages with groups with similar multicultural interests increase the likelihood and success of joint cancer control efforts, and 3) policy‐based interventions are more likely to have a pronounced effect on decreasing smoking and cancer prevalence than education programs or individual smoking‐cessation efforts alone. Cancer 1998;83:1793‐1795. © 1998 American Cancer Society.