NMSU project tackles tobacco cessation among LGBTQ+ adults in NM

Tamara Stimatze, assistant professor of public health sciences, and Jaimee Heffner, a public health scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, are working together to culturally adapt a self-guided, digital intervention designed for tobacco cessation for individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ in New Mexico.

Heffner’s team developed the first self-guided digital intervention for sexual and gender minority young adults, called the Empowered, Queer, Quitting and Living, or EQQUAL, program. This program is an avatar-led, digital Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, program designed for LGBTQ+ young adults at all stages of readiness to quit smoking. ACT’s focus on increasing psychological flexibility offers a new approach to address LGBTQ+ individuals’ barriers to cessation.

Stimatze’s project will use an intersectional, community-engaged approach to culturally adapt EQQUAL for LGBTQ+ young adults in New Mexico. After adaption, the project will conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate the tailored program’s acceptability and efficacy for tobacco cessation. The project is funded by the Partnership for the Advancement of Cancer Research, supported in part by grants from the National Cancer Institute.