Incentives2Quit

What is Incentives2Quit?

Incentives2Quit is a virtual motivational interviewing-grounded incentive-based treatment. It is a state-of-the-science program that helps to sustain motivation and successfully quit smoking. The program includes monetary incentives that reinforce biologically-verified cessation (via breath CO measures) while simultaneously building intrinsic motivation and skills to maintain long-term tobacco cessation. Incentives2Quit is an effective motivational and incentive-based treatment, established during our previous pilot demonstration project among Medicaid beneficiaries.1 See text box below for the description The diagram above represents the conceptual model of Incentives2Quit. The program has four key components that reinforce a person’s internal and external motivations to change their smoking behaviors. We target biologically-verified abstinence from combustible tobacco, and engagement with the program app and the MI Tobacco Quitlink. These target behaviors are incentivized through extrinsic rewards (i.e., money) and intrinsic rewards (i.e., personalized motivational messages). Together, the target behaviors and rewards lead to reinforcement of behavior change and smoking cessation.”

References:

  1. Tomlinson, D.C., Bonar, E.E., Zimmermann, L., Fernandez, A., Tzilos Wernette, G., Nahum-Shani, I., Coughlin, L.N. An Incentive-Based Mobile Health Program for Smoking Cessation in Low-Resource Populations with a Pilot Micro-Randomized Trial. (Under review).

Why Smoking Cessation?

  • Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States and Michigan.1
  • If no one smoked cigarettes, 1 of every 3 cancer-related deaths in the United States would not happen.1
  • Cigarette smoking is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the United States every year.1
  • Smoking causes an increase in blood pressure, leading to an increased risk of stroke and coronary artery disease.1
  • 24.5% of Medicaid recipients smoke cigarettes nationwide compared to 14% of the general population.2
  • In Michigan, 41.3% of Medicaid recipients smoke compared to 19.3% of the general population.2
  • Nationally, Medicaid could save $2.6 billion in 1 year if 1% of beneficiaries stopped smoking.2

In summary, quitting smoking is the single best health behavior change to improve quality of life and length of life.

References:

  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, October 29). Health effects of cigarette smoking. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/
  2. Glantz, S. A. 2019. “Estimation of 1-Year Changes in Medicaid Expenditures Associated with Reducing Cigarette Smoking Prevalence by 1%.” JAMA Network Open. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2730483.

How Can Incentives2Quit Help?

  • The Incentives2Quit program helps to reinforce behavior change for smoking cessation through monetary rewards for treatment adherence, smoking abstinence, and Michigan Tobacco Quitlink coaching engagement.
  • Incentives2Quit is designed to be delivered in addition to existing Medicaid-covered services such as Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT), FDA-approved medications (e.g., Chantix and Zyban), and cessation counseling.

Testimonials

Tobacco Cessation Champions

We completed 20 interviews with tobacco cessation champions in the State of Michigan to better understand the barriers and opportunities to improving tobacco cessation services in Michigan to help people make more quit attempts and be successful in their quit attempts. Here’s what some champions had to say about Incentives2Quit:
  • “Monetary incentives will always be compelling to people without question. The convenience of text messaging is a good program.”
  • “For some people, having the ability to connect to an outside app or provider would be a helpful way for them to maintain their motivation.”

Patients

  • “I liked the ability to see the level of CO in my system as the weeks went on the most. Seeing the levels lower or raise was crucial to see how much it affects even one cigarette. While intrinsic and extrinsic motivation was really great tied together but I feel almost more rewarded today to continue.”
  • “The incentives gave me a reason to stick with it.”
  • “The program as a whole was extremely beneficial to me. I felt surprised when the end date arrived but this may have been because it took me a while to get to such a lower level of smoking.”

News & Events

May 21, 2024: Peer Survey Results presented at the MI Peer Conference

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Peer Support Services and the University of Michigan partnered to learn more about peers’ thoughts on tobacco use. The survey was distributed to over 3,000 recipients (peer support specialists, peer recovery coaches, and community health workers). The survey found that most peers strongly agree that smoking is harmful to health with 4 out of 10 respondents having had negative consequences of tobacco use. Among the available supports for smoking cessation (i.e., nicotine replacement therapy [NRT] , counseling, Quitlink/Quitline, medications, and peer-to-peer support), peer-to-peer support was most endorsed as being very effective, especially among peers with past tobacco use. Among peers who currently use tobacco, the Quitlink/Quitline and NRT were endorsed as very effective. Medications, NRT, and peer-to-peer support were rated very effective the most among the other supports available.

May 22, 2024: 34th Annual Albert J. Silverman Research Conference

The Incentives2Quit team had the opportunity to present on Incentives2Quit pilot demonstration outcomes at the 34th Annual Albert J. Silverman Research Conference hosted by the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry. The poster was titled “Pilot implementation of a motivational incentive smoking cessation program for rural Medicaid patients”. View the Pilot implementation of a motivational incentive smoking cessation program for rural Medicaid patients poster. *Note about Figure B on the poster: This is a staff member demonstrating how to use the iCO device to measure breath CO

Incentive2Quit Team at the Albert J. Severman Research Conference

Incentive2Quit Researchers standing in front of their poster

Press Releases

Contact the Incentive2Quit Team!

Email: [email protected] Phone: 734-210-7655

Program

Primary Investigator: Lara Coughlin, PhD

Program Coordinators: Natalie Bayrakdarian, B.S. and Chelsea Wilkins, LMSW

Address: 2800 Plymouth Road, Building 16, Ann Arbor, MI 48105

IRBMED: HUM00244852

Associated Websites