PHOENICS is a 5-year research project based in Beirut, Lebanon funded by the National Institutes of Health (NCI-NIH).
The tobacco use burden in Lebanon is exceptionally high. According to a recent large nationally representative study, more than two in three adults in Lebanon are current smokers of combustible tobacco products (mainly cigarette and waterpipe).
Article 14 of The World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) recommends integrating evidence-based tobacco cessation interventions (behavioral and pharmacological) into existing health care systems as an instrumental step towards a comprehensive cessation support system. However, recommended interventions are not integrated as a routine part of primary care in Lebanon, as is the case in other low-resource settings.
Under the leadership of Principal Investigators Ramzi Salloum, PhD, and Rima Nakkash, DrPH, researchers on our team intend to help fill this evidence-to-practice gap by studying how effective two evidence-based smoking cessation interventions, phone-based counseling and nicotine replacement therapy, are at helping people quit and maintain abstinence from smoking in comparison to each other and the standard care in Lebanon, assisting with brief counseling by health care providers.
Specific Aims
- Adapt and tailor an existing smoking cessation program to deliver phone-based counseling to smokers in Lebanon.
- Test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a referral-based program that delivers smoking cessation services to primary care patients.
- Identify the multilevel determinants of implementation and sustainability using mixed methods.
Trial
We are conducting a trial to compare the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the below multicomponent interventions:
