Activating lay health influencers to promote tobacco cessation.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of tobacco cessation brief-intervention (BI) training for lay "health influencers," on knowledge, self-efficacy and the proportion of participants reporting BI delivery post-training.

Methods: Randomized, community-based study comparing In-person or Web-based training, with mailed materials.

Results: In-person and Web-training groups had significant post-training cessation knowledge and self-efficacy gains. All groups increased the proportion of individuals reporting BIs at follow-up, with no significant between-group differences. Irrespective of participants' prior intervention experience, 80%-86% reported BIs within the past 90 days; 71%-79% reported >1 in the past 30.

Conclusions: Web and In-person training significantly increase health influencer cessation knowledge and self-efficacy. With minimal prompting and materials, even persons without BI experience can be activated to encourage tobacco cessation.