Advancing Smoking Cessation in California's Medicaid Population: The Medi-Cal Incentives to Quit Smoking (MIQS) Project

Steven Schroeder, MD, is Distinguished Professor of Health and Healthcare at the University of California San Francisco, where he directs the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center (SCLC). A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, he trained in internal medicine at Harvard and in epidemiology at the CDC. He held faculty positions at Harvard and George Washington University. Between 1990 and 2002 he was President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where he initiated programs in tobacco control that resulted in $500 million in grant expenditures during his tenure. The SCLC, which he founded in 2003, works with professional societies, federal and state organizations, and advocacy groups to both increase the number of smokers who attempt to quit and increase the probability of a successful quit. It has partnered with over 80 organizations, launched the “Ask, Advise, Refer (to a quitline)” alternative for busy clinicians, developed the blue card for 1 - 800-QUIT NOW (over 5 million now in circulation), broadened the range of clinicians involved in smoking cessation, and helped to focus more attention on the lethal combination of smoking and behavioral health conditions. A member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly IOM), he chaired the American Legacy Foundation Board of Directors (now Truth Initiative), and served on the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine for 19 years.

Dr. Elisa Tong is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Tong received her bachelors, master’s in health services research, and medical degrees at Stanford University. She completed her clinical and research training at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and UCSF, and continues to work in general medicine in the clinic and hospital settings. Her research area of interest is in tobacco control policy and cessation issues, with special interests in disparities and secondhand smoke. She has been Project Director for UC Quits and the Statewide Outreach PI for the Medi-Cal Incentives to Quit Smoking project. In her current projects, she is the PI for a TRDRP Community Practice-Based Research project with Los Angeles Department of Health Services, and the Project Director for CA Quits and one of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Center Cessation Initiative awards.

Shu-Hong Zhu, Ph.D. is a Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health and the Director of the Center for Research and Intervention in Tobacco Control (CRITC) at the University of California, San Diego. His tobacco control research focuses on two tracks: treatment research for individual smokers and population analysis of large datasets. He has been the Principal Investigator for the California Smokers’ Helpline since its inception in 1992. The Helpline is internationally recognized for its scientific innovation and its dedication to the dissemination of research findings to public health services. His recent work focuses on the interface of individual- and population-based approaches to smoking cessation and the effects of social norms on smoking behavior. He examines how population-level tobacco use patterns change in response to public health policy or to social norms. This also includes examination of the impact of emerging tobacco products on population-level tobacco use patterns and the market-driven influence on health behavior. Dr. Zhu has received many awards, including the California Wellness Foundation/ University of California Wellness Lecture Award and the APHA Excellence Award from the American Public Health Association.