Navigation, Contact Info, and Legend for the OSH Website
• View By Topic
• Quick Links
• About this Office
Contact Info
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Office on Smoking and Health
Tel: 1-800-CDC-INFO
(1-800-232-4636)
TTY: 1-888-232-6348
E-mail: tobaccoinfo@cdc.gov
Legend
= Link to a PDF document
(Adobe Acrobat™ Reader needs to be installed on your computer in order to read PDF documents.)
Download the Reader
= Link to nonfederal Web site
Disclaimer on nonfederal Web sites
Pathways to Freedom
Suggestions
"If there is no struggle,
there is no progress."
~ Frederick Douglass
Here are some suggested ways to use the new Pathways to Freedom
guide to help individuals and communities become healthier and Tobacco-Free.
Health Centers
- Share copies of Pathways to Freedom with patients and at each
visit ask about individual tobacco use and exposure to other people's smoking.
- Have copies of Pathways to Freedom available in the waiting room
and exam rooms for people to read while waiting to be seen.
- Use the information in Pathways to Freedom to explain to smoking patients
the importance of setting a quit date.
- Have a health professional ask about progress toward quitting at each
follow-up appointment.
- Explain the usefulness of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) using the
Pathways to Freedom pages to explain what NRT is and how it can help
an addicted smoker quit.
- Identify certain days in each month to focus on smoking cessation at the
health center and track whether more copies of Pathways to Freedom
are taken home during those days in comparison to other days in the month.
Quitlines
- Mention Pathways to Freedom in public service announcements to
encourage African-American smokers and their loved ones to call in for help
in quitting.
- If the smoker has attempted to quit and relapsed in the past, encourage
use of nicotine replacement therapy as explained in Pathways to Freedom.
- When talking to callers, go over specific pages of Pathways to Freedom
in a telephone conversation before sending out the booklet.
- Ask callers how they heard about the Quitline. If they mention Pathways
to Freedom, ask where they heard or saw the message to determine which
media outlets are most effective in encouraging calls.
- Use the list of "Things to Do" on page 37 in Pathways to Freedom
to select the best activities for community action.
- Have copies of Pathways to Freedom available to distribute at community
meetings.
- Use information in Pathways to Freedom to educate community members
on the reasons why indoor spaces should be tobacco free to protect people from
the dangers of secondhand smoke.
- Obtain names and telephone numbers from people who ask for Pathways
to Freedom guides to use as contacts for follow-up.
- Put up Pathways to Freedom posters with postage-paid tear-offs
in community settings where people congregate and track how many people return
the tear-offs or make follow-up calls.
Work Sites
- Have copies of Pathways to Freedom on display, especially if the
work site is smokefree.
- Give out promotional items with the Pathways to Freedom logo as
reminders of the importance of quitting.
- Encourage co-workers to try to quit smoking as a group, so that they can
give each other support using Pathways to Freedom as a self-help guide.
- Share the stages of change outlined in Pathways to Freedom on page
24 to help people identify where they are on their path toward becoming
smokefree.
- Talk with nonsmokers and former smokers about ways that they can be supportive
of co-workers trying to quit, using the advice in Pathways to Freedom.
- Offer discounts or free nicotine replacement therapies (NRT) for workers
who agree to use the advice in Pathways to Freedom and ask users of
NRTs to fill out surveys on their progress toward quitting.
Churches and Faith Communities
- Include quotations and text from Pathways to Freedom in church
bulletins as a way to encourage smokers to quit and former smokers not to
relapse.
- Have Pathways to Freedom guides available to give out—even if
there are no obvious smokers in the congregation. Members may have family
members and friends who still smoke.
- Use Pathways to Freedom as the focal point for a Smokeless Sabbath
program, linking the importance of good health to appropriate verses in the
scriptures.
- Encourage church leaders to become involved in community activities to
prevent tobacco use by following the community mobilization advice in Pathways
to Freedom.
- Schedule regular cessation classes as part of church outreach efforts
using the Pathways to Freedom guide, and keep a tally of attendance,
quit attempts, and successful quits.
Community-Based Organizations
(CBO's)
- Post key pages of Pathways to Freedom on bulletin boards at the
CBO office as a reminder to staff, clients, and volunteers who smoke that
they should try to quit.
- Seek funding to conduct cessation classes and provide free or low-cost
nicotine replacement therapies, using Pathways to Freedom as a guide
for smokers who want to quit.
- Encourage youth groups to create their own tobacco prevention and control
posters, using the illustrations in Pathways to Freedom as examples.
- Have a recorded message with information from Pathways to Freedom
on a special healthline and use the message to track how many people request
information on quitting. Change the message daily or weekly.
Physicians
- Have copies of Pathways to Freedom on display in the waiting room
and in the patient rooms so that smokers can get information while they are
waiting to be seen by the health professional.
- Ask patients whether they are smoking and if they are, give them a copy
of Pathways to Freedom to take home.
- Cut out photographs and illustrations from Pathways to Freedom
and post them on the walls and doors as decoration and information.
- Record the smoking status of patients at each visit and indicate how many
have quit using Pathways to Freedom as a comparison to other quit smoking
methods.
Page last updated 02/28/2007