Latino smokers respond better to a specially adapted smoking cessation program that is "culturally appropriate," according to a new study from Belinda Borrelli, professor of psychiatry and human behavior.
No other studies have focused on Latino smokers who are caregivers to children with asthma, though asthma is particularly prevalent among Latino children, Borrelli said. Latinos — the largest minority group in the United States — have received the least education about smoking, and parents of asthmatic children smoke as much as the rest of the Latino population, according to her study.
Borrelli called the study "a double whammy, because it has an effect on both parent smoking and child asthma."
The study gave about half of the participants a culturally adapted smoking cessation treatment, Borrelli said. This intervention took an approach "consistent with Latino values" and "focused on the family." For this group, the study placed nicotine monitors on asthmatic children of Latino caregivers and in their homes to measure smoke levels.
After a week, caregivers were told about the negative effects of the smoking. The warnings took the form, "It is as if little Maria smoked x number of cigarettes," Borrelli said.
Caregivers also received information on the effects of secondhand smoke on asthma, and how quitting could alleviate these dangers, according to the study.
The other half received a treatment that was not specially adapted and followed "clinical guidelines" for smoking cessation, according to the study. These participants did not receive nicotine monitors.
"Latinos responded and quit smoking more with a culturally adapted intervention," Borrelli said. After three months, 28.2 percent of caregivers that received the specially adapted treatment had completely stopped smoking, as compared to 17.7 percent of caregivers who had received the standard treatment, according to the study.
Borrelli said the research, which took about three years to complete, has resulted in "one treatment that affects two health conditions."
