Smoker-to-Smoker (S2S) Peer Marketing and Messaging to Disseminate Tobacco Interventions

Smoker-to-Smoker (S2S) Peer Marketing and Messaging to Disseminate Tobacco

The research study, "Smoker-to-Smoker (S2S) Peer Marketing and Messaging to Disseminate Tobacco Interventions" will test two smoker-driven, social marketing innovations to recruit and engage smokers in Decide2Quit.org (Decide2Quit), which is an evidence-based, effective "Digital Intervention for Smoking Cessation".

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Smoking Cessation
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Recommender CTHC; Other: Peer Recruitment; Other: Standard Online Recruitment; Behavioral: Standard CTHC

Detailed Description

S2S has many innovations that are designed to utilize the power of peers and social networks for dissemination. These include: Peer recruitment: Tools to facilitate smokers' recruiting their peers to increase Decide2Quit access; and a recommender computer tailored health communication (recommender CTHC): a Complex machine learning algorithm (recommender systems) that uses smokers' feedback (explicit and implicit) in the current and prior studies to adapt its selection of messages to smokers.

Using a 2×2 factorial design, the study will compare individually and collectively the enhancements (recruitment, use, and effectiveness) offered by the S2S functions over the standard version of Decide2Quit (online recruitment and standard CTHC), an active comparison group.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1487
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, 01605
      • University of Massachusetts Medical School

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 18 years of Age or older
• Current smoker

Exclusion Criteria:

• Under 18 years of age
• Non-smoker

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Fully enhanced; Peer recruitment and recommender CTHC	Behavioral: Recommender CTHC; Enhanced Messaging; Other: Peer Recruitment; Tools to facilitate smokers' recruiting their peers
Experimental: Recommender CTHC only; Recommender CTHC and standard online recruitment	Behavioral: Recommender CTHC; Enhanced Messaging; Other: Standard Online Recruitment; Search Engine and Social Media Advertisements
Experimental: Peer recruitment only; Peer recruitment and standard CTHC	Other: Peer Recruitment; Tools to facilitate smokers' recruiting their peers; Behavioral: Standard CTHC; Standard Messaging
Experimental: Standard; Standard online recruitment and standard CTHC	Other: Standard Online Recruitment; Search Engine and Social Media Advertisements; Behavioral: Standard CTHC; Standard Messaging

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Smoking Cessation	Smoking cessation measured by the 7-day point prevalence question: Six month, 7-day point prevalence : Do you currently smoke cigarettes (smoked even 1 puff in the last 7 days)?; Yes; No; Don't know/not sure; Refused	At 6 months post registration

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in the Number of Cigarettes Smoked	Calculated as: number of cigarettes smoked at six months minus the number of number of cigarettes smoked at baseline.	At 6 months post registration
Repeated Use of Decide2Quit Functions	As measured by, an ordinal scale of number of Decide2Quit functions used after the first DISC visit (0: no functions used; 1: use of 1-2 functions, 2: > 2 functions used).	Throughout study (tracked for 6 months post registration)
Recruitment of African Americans	This is measured by the proportion of African Americans in each treatment arm	At Baseline Registration
Recruitment Time	Calculated as: each individual participant's recruitment date minus the date of the first participant's registration. Based on this formula, the first participant will have a recruitment time of 0 days and the last participant could have a maximum recruitment time of 3 years (1095 days).	At Baseline Registration

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Massachusetts, Worcester
• Collaborators: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute; Northwestern University; University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Rajani Sadasivam, PhD, University of Massachusetts, Worcester

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Chen J, Houston TK, Faro JM, Nagawa CS, Orvek EA, Blok AC, Allison JJ, Person SD, Smith BM, Sadasivam RS. Evaluating the use of a recommender system for selecting optimal messages for smoking cessation: patterns and effects of user-system engagement. BMC Public Health. 2021 Sep 26;21(1):1749. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-11803-8.
• Faro JM, Nagawa CS, Orvek EA, Smith BM, Blok AC, Houston TK, Kamberi A, Allison JJ, Person SD, Sadasivam RS. Comparing recruitment strategies for a digital smoking cessation intervention: Technology-assisted peer recruitment, social media, ResearchMatch, and smokefree.gov. Contemp Clin Trials. 2021 Apr;103:106314. doi: 10.1016/j.cct.2021.106314. Epub 2021 Feb 8.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 20, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 1, 2019
• Study Completion (Actual): March 13, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 21, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 18, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): July 21, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 26, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 4, 2021
• Last Verified: March 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: CDR-1603-34645; CDR160334645 (Other Grant/Funding Number: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No