ADEA Grant to Fund Smoking Cessation Curriculum Development at BUSDM

BUSDM students may soon be pioneers in the fight against tobacco addiction. A new BUSDM study, supported by an $8,000 grant from the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Council of Sections Project Pool, will assess smoking cessation education in the school’s curricula.

"[In a 2005 JADA survey] more than half of the general dentists viewed smoking cessation activities as peripheral to dentistry—a view likely barring them from performing such activities," says Brenda Heaton, instructor in the Department of Health Policy and Health Services Research and the study’s principal investigator. Heaton believes ensuring BUSDM students receive formal smoking cessation education will help them feel comfortable advising their future patients on the oral health risks of smoking and how to quit.

The school will adminster an annual survey, adapted from BUSM’s Prevention and Cessation Education (PACE) program, to DMD students to assess students’ general knowledge of smoking cessation treatment and level of comfort talking to patients about their options, among other areas. Staff will research faculty and adminstrators’ attitudes and behaviors related to smoking cessation education.

"The overarching goal of this project is to provide a model for smoking cessation training in dental schools nationwide by drawing upon an already validated program (PACE)," Heaton says. "[BUSDM will] establish a precedent for the integration of tobacco cessation education into the formal training of dental health professionals."

Heaton expects to wrap up data analysis in August 2007.