About
History of Smart about Tobacco
SMART about Tobacco is a series of tobacco cessation programs for Tennesseans.
SMART about Tobacco includes a targeted program for providers who see pregnant women as well as a program for dental providers who see a variety of patients who may use tobacco. SMART Moms was Tennessee's first statewide prenatal tobacco cessation program which began with the pilot project in 2002. SMART Moms - also known as Smart Mothers are Resisting Tobacco- focuses on training healthcare providers on how to counsel their pregnant patients using best-practices tobacco cessation techniques. SMART Moms was started as a piloted multi-year project in 2002 and continued as a funded project through 2006. The pilot program was developed for and by Tennesseans, designed for, and with input from, Tennessee health department staff across the state. The program was also used by private providers who see pregnant women in their clinical practices and continues today as an online resource. It was piloted with over 13,000 Tennessee women from all 95 Tennessee counties during the pilot project years and with input from women participating in focus groups throughout Tennessee. We welcome other states who would like to use our online resources to implement the program in their state or to otherwise adapt to meet their needs.
Initially a collaborative project between the March of Dimes Tennessee Chapter, Middle Tennessee State University’s Center for Health and Human Services, and the Tennessee Department of Health, the S.M.A.R.T. Moms project has trained upwards of 400 providers and educated approximately 18,000 others on “best practices” smoking-cessation techniques (5 As) for pregnant women, allowing them to counsel over 13,000 women during the pilot program. The program has been modified and updated in 2014 and expanded to include a partnership with Marshall University's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.
In 2017, Smart about Tobacco expanded to include dental providers who have a tremendous opportunity to impact the health of their patient's oral health and overall health through tobacco-free living. Through a March of Dimes Community Grant, Smile SMART is currently under development and will be implemented in select Tennessee counties during fall 2017 and spring of 2018. We are pleased to partner with the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry and the Tennessee Department of Health's Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Program to offer Smile SMART.
Everyone Smart about Tobacco, a targeted program that can be used by ANY healthcare provider and with ANY patient, will be developed in the future as an expansion of SMART Moms and Smile SMART.
Too Many Tennesseeans Smoke
14.9% of women in Tennessee smoked throughout pregnancy giving the state a ranking of 41 AND it is estimated that 50 to 67 percent of children under five live in homes with at least one adult smoker.
Sources: The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Mother’s Day Data on Smoking Moms, 2017. www.tobaccofreekids.org. Accessed 6/17/2017.
American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery. www.entnet.org. Accessed 6/17/2017.
Help Your Patients Quit.
The Surgeon General’s 2001 report on women and smoking suggests that even brief interventions by clinicians to assist in smoking cessation have a positive effect, and that interventions have an impact independent of whether the patient is interested in quitting smoking or not.
Source: Women and Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2001. www.cdc.gov. Accessed 8/29/2017.