University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention has received a grant for more than $9 million for research to help people quit smoking.
UW-CTRI will receive the money over a five-year period from the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, said UW-CTRI Director Michael Fiore. UW-CTRI had to apply for the grant and was selected to receive the research money.
Fiore added the grant money will be used to help people who are already smokers and actively are trying to quit or are considering trying to quit.
“We’re really trying to expand the treatments that will help smokers who want to quit to do that successfully, and specifically were trying to come up with treatments for people who are ready to quit today as well as those who are open to quitting but are not ready yet, and how do we motivate them so they are willing to make a quit attempt,” Fiore said.
Fiore also said the cost of smoking in society is astronomical. The economy loses $200 billion in added health care costs and lost productivity a year. Smoking is not just a financial concern, but also a huge health concern as well.
“Each year in our state 8,000 families lose a loved one from a disease directly caused by smoking,” Fiore said. “Across America more than 400,000 Americans are killed from tobacco dependence.”
Starting in the spring of 2010 researchers will select 2,300 smokers from clinics across south central and southeastern Wisconsin, according to a statement from UW-CTRI. The participants will be in the study for one year.
The statement added the research study will provide study participants with both quit coaching and nicotine medications to help them stop smoking.
Undergraduate students at UW work at CTRI. Fiori said they have anywhere from a couple to a dozen students at the center each semester.
“There are always a number of undergraduate students who work at the center,” Fiore said. “They work for research projects and work study jobs.”
The federal grant comes as the Centers for Disease Control released data saying the number of people who smoke in the U.S has gone up from 19.8 percent to 20.6 percent, according to the statement. The percentage of people who smoke in Wisconsin is 19.6.
UW-CTRI has received two other large grants for its smoking research in 1999 and again in 2005, according to the UW-CTRI website.
The universities of Penn State and Illinois at Chicago will also be participating in the research study.
“Tobacco use, smoking, is really unequal in our society in terms of the toll it takes on individuals and on society, and it’s the leading preventable cause of illness in America today,” Fiore said.
