Open AccessGeographic Representativeness of a Web-Based Smoking Cessation Intervention: Reach Equity Analysis
Author(s) -
Michael S. Amato,
Amanda L. Graham
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
jmir. journal of medical internet research/journal of medical internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.446
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1439-4456
pISSN - 1438-8871
DOI - 10.2196/11668
Subject(s) - smoking cessation , representativeness heuristic , environmental health , medicine , the internet , metropolitan area , intervention (counseling) , equity (law) , demography , psychology , psychiatry , world wide web , social psychology , pathology , sociology , political science , law , computer science
Background Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. Smoking prevalence is higher in rural areas than in metropolitan areas, due partly to differences in access to cessation treatment. With internet use at 89% of all US adults, digital approaches could increase use of cessation treatment and reduce smoking. Objective We investigated the extent to which smokers from rural areas use a digital cessation resource. We compared the geographic distribution of registered users of a free Web-based smoking cessation program with the geographic distribution of US smokers. Methods We mapped user-provided ZIP codes to Rural-Urban Continuum Codes. A total of 59,050 of 118,574 users (49.80%) provided valid ZIP codes from 2013 to 2017. We used US National Survey of Drug Use and Health data from 2013 to 2017 to compare the geographic distribution of our sample of Web-based cessation users with the geographic distribution of US smokers. Reach ratios and 95% confidence intervals quantified the extent to which rural smokers’ representation in the sample was proportionate to their representation in the national smoking population. Reach ratios less than 1 indicate underrepresentation. Results Smokers from rural areas were significantly underrepresented in 2013 (reach ratio 0.89, 95% CI 0.87-0.91) and 2014 (reach ratio 0.89, 95% CI 0.86-0.92), proportionally represented in 2015 (reach ratio 1.08, 95% CI 1.02-1.14) and 2016 (reach ratio 1.03, 95% CI 0.94-1.14), and proportionally overrepresented in 2017 (reach ratio 1.16, 95% CI 1.12-1.21). Smokers from Large Metro areas were proportionally represented in 2013 and 2014 but underrepresented in 2015 (reach ratio 0.97, 95% CI 0.94-1.00), 2016 (reach ratio 0.89, 95% CI 0.85-0.94), and 2017 (reach ratio 0.89, 95% CI 0.86-0.91). Conclusions Results suggest that smokers from rural areas are more than proportionally reached by a long-standing digital cessation intervention. The underrepresentation of smokers from Large Metro areas warrants further study.