Motivating Pasifika against Cigarettes & Tobacco (MPACT): A community-academic partnership for smoking cessation in Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander communities

Background/Significance: Despite declining tobacco use in the U.S., Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders (NHPIs) have high rates of cigarette smoking. Tobacco control challenges affecting NHPIs include small population size and dispersed population density, which have seriously limited knowledge of their needs and delivery of services and programs to reduce tobacco use.

Objective/Purpose: Following a community-based participatory research (CBPR) model, five NHPI-led community-based organizations (CBOs), each with a long history of tobacco control advocacy, partnered with academic tobacco use researchers to develop a culturally attuned smoking cessation program for young adult NHPIs, a group at high risk for progression to addictive smoking. 

Methods:  Guiding the development of the cessation program was a CBPR model that defined the parameters of the community-academic partnership by promoting a shared vision and co-decision, providing a governance structure, detailing roles and responsibilities at each phase, and facilitating ongoing communication and problem solving through monthly team meetings.

Results: The resulting cessation program Motivating Pasifika against Cigarettes & Tobacco (MPACT) combined health promotion theory with communication technologies used by young adults and NHPI cultural values.  Intervention components include cell phone texting, a Facebook-hosted online eight-module tobacco education program and social support blog, and weekly check in phone call/text.

Discussion/Conclusions: The MPACT program benefitted from the CBPR partnership, which combined tobacco control science with the input of community insider knowledge to identify health concerns and their root causes, contribute to feasible intervention strategies, promote program sustainability, and empower communities to increase their capacity to address health challenges.