Turn Your Phone into a Personal Coach to Help You Quit Smoking!

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Smoking is a tough opponent to beat.

Quitxt is a new free service that turns your mobile phone into a personal coach to help you quit smoking, using interactive and entertaining text messages, online support, hip-hop music, and videos designed for South Texas young adults by researchers at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.

The service’s text messages help with motivation to quit, setting a quit date, finding things to do instead of smoking, handling stress, using nicotine replacement if needed, and more.

To join, text “iquit” to 57682.

“Text-message applications have scientifically proven to roughly double one’s odds of quitting smoking, so we developed Quitxt specifically for young adult Latinos to capitalize on their heavy usage of texting to help them quit,” said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, study leader and director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the UT Health Science Center.

Smoking rates are high among Mexican Americans along the border and across South Texas, ranging from 23.2 percent to 25.7 percent, heightening the risk of cancer and heart disease.

But few culturally relevant, accessible programs target this problem.

In response, Ramirez and her team joined with text-message system expert Dr. David Akopian of UT San Antonio to develop the Quitxt texting and online support service. They adapted components of proven federal tobacco cessation programs and built a texting system and content to fit the unique culture and linguistic styles of Latinos who smoke tobacco cigarettes in San Antonio, Laredo, Eagle Pass and Del Rio.

Quitxt is now enrolling English-speaking young adult smokers ages 18-29 and adults 30+.

The service, made possible by a $1.4 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, will also be rolled out in Spanish in early 2016.

“We feel Quitxt will increase Latino young adults’ smoking quit rates, and provide a model of service that can be cost-effectively replicated across Texas,” Ramirez said.

Join Quitxt here!