Implementation and Outcomes of a Maternal Smoking Cessation Program for a Multi-ethnic Cohort in California, USA, 2012-2019.

Smoking during pregnancy remains one of the most significant risk factors for poor birth outcomes. During 2012-2019, the Loma Linda University Health Comprehensive Tobacco Treatment Program (CTTP) used a multicomponent behavioral intervention for tobacco cessation for 1402 pregnant smokers with components of known efficacy (i.e., incentives, biomarker testing, feedback, and motivational interviewing). The CTTP cohort includes a multi-ethnic sample of pregnant women with a mean age of 27 years referred by collaborating community-based healthcare providers in San Bernardino county. Evaluation of program outcomes from 7 years of follow-up (2012-2019) creates a rich cohort dataset for implementation science research to examine the real-world effectiveness of the program. In this report, we provide a cohort profile, and 8-week prolonged abstinence (8-week PA) and relapse findings from the first year of follow-up (n = 233). We found: (1) 28.4% achieved 8-week PA, (2) At a median of 6.2 months of follow-up after achieving 8-week PA, 23.2% of enrolled subjects reported tobacco cessation, and (3) a high rate of loss to follow-up (44%). In addition, our modeling indicated that the odds of relapse/smoking after enrollment was significantly higher in young mothers, non-Hispanic mothers (White, Black/African-American), mothers in the first and third trimester, and rural mothers. Formative quantitative and qualitative research on the CTTP cohort will consider the effects of a range of implementation science (number of intervention sessions, addition of a mHealth component, distance to care) and individual (partner/household smoking, birth outcomes, NICU) outcome measures for the purpose of scaling up the CTTP model.

An interdisciplinary view of medical pluralism among Mexican-Americans.

This article highlights the relationship between traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine (TCAM) and biomedicine, and the challenges this relationship poses to patients. Medical professionals tend to represent these systems dualistically - as mutually exclusive and in competition with one another. Patients, on the other hand, tend to make truly pluralistic health care decisions - moving freely between TCAM and biomedicine based on what they can access, what they can relate to, and what they believe works. Using their experience with Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American populations in Southwestern United States, the authors discuss strengths and weaknesses in both healthcare systems, and how medical dualism can be a significant barrier to effective healthcare. Recent literature on medical pluralism is discussed from the public health (i.e., community) and medical (i.e., provider) perspectives. These two disciplines are brought together in an attempt to deconstruct the notion that TCAM and biomedicine are diametrically opposed healthcare systems. Biomedically trained health care providers must understand, appreciate, and integrate into their practice how their patients make use of other healing practices and beliefs. Such integration is particularly essential when serving immigrant or minority populations as these groups are more likely to use a pluralistic approach in meeting their health needs.