Saving Our Legacy: An African American Maternal Smoking Cessation Intervention for Sacramento County

Active and passive smoking is known to cause pregnancy-related outcomes, but new challenges and emerging science with tobacco and cannabis demonstrate a critical need to educate on maternal health risks from perinatal to postpartum. Smoking rates among African American (AA) women shows AA women in Sacramento County have twice the rates of non-Latino white counterparts for any cigarette smoking 3 months before pregnancy, during the 3rd trimester, and postpartum. Similar rates are seen for any use of cannabis during pregnancy. These rates are also higher in Sacramento County AA women than California AA women. The “Saving Our Legacy: An African American Maternal Smoking Cessation Intervention for Sacramento County” study will develop and evaluate a technology-based, culturally-tailored educational intervention designed to motivate African American Black pregnant and parenting people (AAB/PPP) in making a behavior change for smoking cessation for tobacco and cannabis. In partnership with a Community Advisory Board, the educational intervention will adapt existing culturally-tailored cessation materials for AAB/PPP, extend it to cannabis use and smoke exposure, and deliver the content through preferred technology-based communication channels. Study outcomes will measure feasibility of enrollment and completion of the intervention. Other study outcomes will measure changes in knowledge, attitude, and behavior change for smoking cessation. The two research questions being addressed are: How can culturally-tailored behavioral tobacco cessation interventions be effectively adapted to address the unique risk factors faced by AAB/PPP? What are the most effective ways to disseminate and implement culturally-tailored smoking cessation interventions for AAB/PPP? These research questions directly address the objective of the TRDRP Partnered-Maternal Smoking Cessation Initiative (MSCI) to cultivate sustainable interventions that effectively address the unique needs and challenges faced by this population, using a community-academic research partnership to co-develop and co-lead the project. The Partnered-MSCI team include Saving Our Legacy (SOL), African Americans for Smoke Free Safe Places Project and UC Davis, which have worked together for over 11 years on tobacco-related research and within the Greater Sacramento Smoke and Tobacco-Free Coalition.