Impact and Effectiveness of a Stand-Alone NRT Starter Kit in a Statewide Tobacco Cessation Program.

Purpose: To examine 2-week nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) starter kit quit outcomes and predictors and the impact of adding this new service on treatment reach.

Design: Observational study of a 1-year cohort of QUITPLAN Services enrollees using registration and utilization data and follow-up outcome survey data of a subset of enrollees who received NRT starter kits.

Setting: ClearWay Minnesota's QUITPLAN Services provides a quit line that is available to uninsured and underinsured Minnesotans and NRT starter kits (a free 2-week supply of patches, gum, or lozenges) that are available to all Minnesota tobacco users.

Increasing reach by offering choices: Results from an innovative model for statewide services for smoking cessation.

Although state quitlines provide free telephone counseling and often include nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), reach remains limited (1-2% in most states). More needs to be done to engage all smokers in the quitting process. A possible strategy is to offer choices of cessation services through quitlines and to reduce registration barriers.

Communication and information sharing at VA facilities during the 2009 novel H1N1 influenza pandemic.

Background: Effective communication is critical to formulating responses to emergent events in health care settings. However, the range of factors that influenced communication in health care settings during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic has received limited attention.

Methods: Cross-sectional semistructured interviews were conducted by telephone with 33 infection control key informants at nationally dispersed Veterans Affairs health care facilities.

Police Encounters, Mental Illness and Injury: An Exploratory Investigation.

Police encounters are believed to be particularly dangerous for people with mental illness and police officers. Despite widespread concern among advocates, researchers and police professionals, little is known about the details of these interactions including the occurrence of injuries. In the current study, we explore injuries to people with mental illness and officers to determine the extent to which situational and individual factors predict injuries.

Outcomes of police contacts with persons with mental illness: the impact of CIT.

The Crisis intervention team model (CIT) is possibly the most well known and widely adopted model to improve police response to persons with mental illness. A primary goal of CIT programs is to divert individuals with mental illness from the criminal justice system to mental health services. In this paper we examine the effectiveness of fielding CIT trained and supported officers for influencing call outcomes using data from patrol officers (n = 112) in four Chicago Police districts.