Research and Practice of Health Promotion, Volume 11: Communication Strategies for Smoking Cessation

Persuading smokers to stop smoking requires not only an awareness of the measures available for cessation and how effective they are, but also a knowledge of how smoking cessation can be successfully communicated. Accordingly, the topic of communication strategies for smoking cessation is one of the core elements in the WHO Partnership Project to Reduce Tobacco Dependence, in which the United Kingdom, France and Poland are involved alongside Germany, where the "Coalition against Smoking" is supported by the Federal Ministry of Health.

Within the framework of this Partnership Project, the BZgA, with the aid of various partners at the national, regional and local governmental level, and of the non-governmental sector, has to develop and evaluate appropriate communication strategies for altering smoking behaviour. Against this backdrop the BZgA commissioned the IFT, Institute for Therapy Research, in Munich to compile and discuss the current state of knowledge regarding communication on smoking cessation. The result of this research is being presented as Volume 11 of the specialist booklet series "Research and Practice of Health Promotion". It provides a review of the various communication strategies and their effectiveness. After discussing the results presented, conclusions are drawn with respect to the effectiveness of communication measures and the requirements to be taken into account, particularly as regards mass media communication. In conclusion, the Annex describes in detail the most important international studies, with respect to both comprehensive smoking cessation campaigns, individual campaigns and specific aspects of communication.