Cigarette-smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Smoking rates are particularly high among people facing socioeconomic challenges with limited access to services to help them quit.
To address this health disparity, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Department of Public Health and the Greater Cleveland Food Bank are working together to modify the "Ask-Advise-Connect" (AAC) quit-smoking model with local pantry workers and patrons starting this summer. Twenty food pantries in Cuyahoga County are anticipated to test the finished concept in January 2026.
"This study will examine how food pantries can serve as a community-based setting for screening, brief intervention and referral to the Ohio Tobacco Quit Line," said Jin Kim-Mozeleski, faculty associate of the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods. "The long-term goal of the project is to develop and test a model that can be disseminated nationally."
Kim-Mozeleski is co-leading the project with Sarah Koopman Gonzalez, research scientist in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the School of Medicine, and Erika Trapl, director of the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods.
The new initiative aims to increase access and use of the quit line, a professional, private and free phone service that provides counseling and nicotine-replacement therapy to help people quit smoking and using other forms of tobacco.
The program, funded by a $3.3 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health awarded late last year, involves working closely with community members to ensure the approach fits their needs.
"We are looking forward to working with our pantry partners and neighbors to co-design the development of this intervention that will benefit our communities," said Kristen Mikelbank, the food bank's senior manager of research and program evaluation.
By modifying and testing the AAC model in food pantries, the project could provide a flexible and sustainable way to help underserved communities quit smoking-ultimately leading to better health for those who need it most, those involved said.
"We hope that by bringing more quitting resources directly to the community," said Frances Mills, the health department's commissioner of public health, "we are able to break down barriers and improve health outcomes."
