QUITPLAN Services ends, and Quit Partner begins

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Admin in News, News - Homepage Slider

Today marks the last day of QUITPLAN® Services, a free counseling service that has helped over 195,000 Minnesotans in their efforts to quit tobacco. Starting April 1, an exciting new chapter begins with the launch of Quit Partner, which will continue to ensure free help is available to Minnesotans who want to quit smoking, vaping, chewing or using other commercial tobacco products.

Since 2001, ClearWay Minnesota has provided QUITPLAN Services with funding from the 1998 tobacco settlement. As a life-limited organization, ClearWay Minnesota will sunset in 2021, which is why QUITPLAN Services will stop accepting new enrollees after March 31, 2020. Participants currently enrolled in QUITPLAN Services will be able to continue and finish their program.

In 2019, the Minnesota Legislature provided funding for the Minnesota Department of Health to create Quit Partner, a new statewide commercial tobacco cessation program. ClearWay and the Minnesota Department of Health have worked to ensure a smooth transition from QUITPLAN Services to Quit Partner, with no interruption of services.

Moving forward, Quit Partner will provide an array of services to help Minnesotans quit tobacco, including personalized coaching, email and text support, educational materials and quit medication (nicotine patches, gum or lozenges) delivered by mail. In addition, Quit Partner offers specialized programs to serve people with mental illnesses or substance use disorders, American Indian communities (aiquit.com), pregnant and post-partum women and youth under the age of 18 (mylifemyquit.com). All Quit Partner programs are supported by National Jewish Health.

Tobacco use is still the leading preventable cause of death, disease and disability in Minnesota, killing over 6,300 Minnesotans every year and costing the state $3.2 billion annually in medical costs. Most people who smoke want to quit – and using coaching and medication together can more than double a person’s chance of successfully quitting. For information or to enroll in Quit Partner, contact 1-800-QUIT-NOW or visit quitpartnermn.com.

Responding to COVID-19:

There is no question we are in the midst of a pandemic of unknown proportions. Responding to COVID-19 is of utmost urgency. Evidence suggests that, since smoking is harmful to the lungs, smokers who are exposed to the virus are likely to have more severe problems than nonsmokers. It is more important than ever for tobacco users to have access to resources to help them quit, so they may possibly reduce their risk of serious complications if exposed to the virus. Free help is available through QuitPartnerMN.com or 1-800-QUIT-NOW (beginning April 1).

Menthol case study

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Admin in News, News - Homepage Slider

ClearWay Minnesota and the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota are pleased to share a case study focused on the implementation of menthol tobacco sales restrictions in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and Falcon Heights. The full report is available here.

Since the implementation of ordinances restricting the sale of menthol tobacco products to adult-only stores, the cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth and Falcon Heights have substantially reduced the number of outlets where menthol tobacco products can be sold. All but Falcon Heights experienced challenges from tobacco retailer attempts to circumvent the ordinances. In response, cities and advocates have examined the original ordinances and implementation processes to improve compliance. This work is ongoing as cities and tobacco control advocates continue to monitor implementation to ensure the ordinances achieve the goal of reducing access to menthol tobacco products in their communities. We hope this case study will provide useful insights and recommendations that may benefit advocates in other cities who hope to reduce menthol-related harms in their community.

This implementation case study follows the series of case studies released in February 2019 which focused of the passage of the policies in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth, found here.

Annual Report 2019

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Admin in News, News - Homepage Slider

ClearWay Minnesota is proud to release our 2019 Annual Report. The report highlights our work over the past fiscal year in areas of public affairs, research, cessation, community development, marketing and communications. Also included are a list of Board Members and statements of our financial position and activities for Fiscal Year 2019.

From all of us, have a safe and happy holiday season.

ClearWay Minnesota Annual Report 2019

Study: Tobacco prevention, cessation saved thousands of lives, billions of dollars in Minnesota

Posted on August 20, 2019 by Admin in News, News - Homepage Slider

A new collaborative study found positive effects from Minnesota’s comprehensive statewide tobacco control program, including more than 4,000 lives saved and over $5 billion in saved health care and productivity costs. Conducted by ClearWay Minnesota and HealthPartners Institute, the research validates two decades’ worth of smoking prevention and cessation efforts at a time when funding for such efforts will soon run out.

“These findings show the importance of investing in tobacco prevention and cessation, both statewide and locally,” said study coauthor Ann St. Claire, Director of Evaluation and Survey Research at ClearWay Minnesota. “The benefits of tobacco control efforts accrue gradually over time, and we know that even now the impact of these programs is continuing to grow. But with the impending end of ClearWay Minnesota, big changes are on the horizon. In order for these effects to continue growing, Minnesota will need to continue and expand similar efforts into the future.”

ClearWay Minnesota, a nonprofit organization created by Minnesota’s tobacco settlement, currently provides nearly 70 percent of total funding for cessation and prevention efforts around the state, but the organization is set to sunset in 2022.

Published in the journal Tobacco Control, the study examines ModelHealth Tobacco: Minnesota, a microsimulation model that used smoking prevalence rates to estimate the impact of tobacco control programs and quantify savings from smokers who quit or never started. The researchers used data from 1998 to 2017 to calculate their findings.

The research found that because of Minnesota’s strong tobacco prevention and cessation programs:

4,560 cancers were prevented
31,691 hospitalizations for smoking-attributable cardiovascular disease and diabetes were prevented
12,881 hospitalizations for smoking-attributable respiratory disease were prevented
4,118 smoking-attributable deaths were prevented
$2.7 billion in medical care costs was saved
$2.4 billion in worker productivity was saved

“For decades, the success of Minnesota’s investment in tobacco control has largely been measured through smoking rates,” said Michael Maciosek, Ph.D., the HealthPartners Institute economist who led the study. “Now for the first time, we have conclusive proof that such efforts truly are preventing disease, saving individuals and employers money, and helping people live longer, healthier lives on a large scale.”

For 20 years, Minnesota has enjoyed one of the most comprehensive tobacco control programs in the nation. Partnerships between state agencies, nonprofits and health insurers have established free quitting resources for Minnesota smokers, helped pass public policies protecting Minnesotans from secondhand smoke and making tobacco products less accessible to youth, funded outreach among diverse communities and created powerful media campaigns, among other achievements.

More info: https://tobaccoco ntrol.bmj.com/content/early/2019/08/14/tobaccocontrol-2018-054825.full

Press release