UMDNJ gets $2.1M for tobacco-use survey

Apr 19, 2010

The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) School of Public Health has been awarded a $2.1 million, four-year grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop and implement a sampling approach that will improve knowledge about tobacco use by young adults and associated use risk factors.

Young adults between the ages of 18 and 25, who have the highest smoking rate of any age group, are difficult to reach on traditional landline phones, according to the university. To successfully and accurately survey this group's tobacco use, public health researchers have found a need to move beyond traditional survey strategies that generate a random sample of household landline phone numbers. By devising a new sampling method that accesses cell phones, UMDNJ researchers hope to make the quality of data better than ever.

"While we recognize that the increase in cell-phone-only households has created a challenge for traditional surveys, the high rate of cell phone ownership among young adults might minimize or even eliminate prior methodological issues related to sampling young adults," said Cristine Delnevo, Ph.D., M.P.H., an associate professor and director of the Center for Tobacco Surveillance and Evaluation Research at the UMDNJ School of Public Health. "Our research aims to develop and implement a cell phone sampling approach to generate nationally representative tobacco control data for young adults and consider the implications by comparing this strategy to traditional methods and emerging technologies."

The School of Public Health team will evaluate the stability of a random-digital-dialing sampling approach targeted to cell phones by conducting two waves of data collection. It will also update the tobacco control knowledge base on young adults by analyzing its tobacco-specific survey data with respect to the use of other tobacco products, cessation of tobacco, attitudes toward tobacco control policies, and participation in tobacco industry marketing practices.