 |
 |
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
BU spin-off creates online community of smokers kicking butts
By David J. Craig
Thirteen months ago, Randy Thomas kicked a four-decade smoking habit. The fifty-five-year-old salesman from Centerville, Ohio, had attempted to quit several times in the past, he says, but never lasted more than a week, until he found an unlikely source of strength -- the Internet.
|
|
|
|
|
| Kay Paine, director of partner development for the Web-based smoking cessation company QuitNet, and David Rosenbloom, the company’s chairman and an SPH professor of social and behavioral sciences, say a unique strength of their company is the supportive online community of former smokers that people can access through the QuitNet Web site. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky |
|
|
QuitNet, an online smoking cessation program, put Thomas in touch with
other people in the process of quitting. He jumped at the opportunity
to participate in the program’s electronic forums, and he says the
online community of QuitNet members is one of the most important factors
keeping him smoke-free. Struck with the occasional urge to light up, he
still logs on to QuitNet to read e-mail messages from other members “to
keep me strong,” he reports in his journal on the company’s
Web site. “I will not break that promise to myself or to those on
QuitNet who have helped me.”
Formed in 1995 as a small project tucked within the School of Public Health,
QuitNet incorporated in 2000 with assistance from BU’s Community
Technology Fund, and according to the company’s directors, to date
it has helped more than a million people stop smoking. QuitNet was originally
developed in 1995 by Nathan Cobb (MED’01), who is doing his residency
at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and is the company’s medical director.
Visually stimulating and sometimes quite humorous, www.quitnet.com offers
free to all visitors a virtual clearinghouse of facts about smoking. (A
personalized service, which is available at $39.95 for three months and
$9.99 for every additional month, offers advice about how to stop smoking
based on members’ age, weight, gender, and smoking habits.)
In addition to providing an abundance of information about the health
risks associated with smoking, the benefits of quitting, and the best
methods for giving up cigarettes, QuitNet features self-assessment tests
to help smokers better understand why they smoke and the physical and
psychological challenges of attempting to quit. It also has a one-on-one
e-mail counseling service, where members can get answers to questions
such as what changes their body may experience when they quit and what
smoking cessation medications might be best for them. Moreover, when members
log on to the site after having quit, they get a tally of how much money
they’ve saved and how many days they’ve added to their life
expectancy.
But perhaps QuitNet’s most unique feature is the bonds the Web site’s
some 65,000 monthly visitors form through chat rooms, electronic bulletin
boards, and forums based on geographic location or personal interests.
“There is an enormous community of online users made up not only
of people who are quitting, but also of people who have quit and keep
coming back to stay motivated and to help others quit,” says Kay
Paine, QuitNet’s director of partner development. “There are
celebrations going on all the time as people recognize other members reaching
milestones, and there are a lot of humor and ‘hoorah, hoorah, you
can do it’ sorts of messages left. That’s something you don’t
get with more traditional smoking cessation services, such as phone counseling.”
Research on quitting smoking has shown that “people with professional
and peer support are much more likely to quit successfully than those
who try to do it alone,” says QuitNet chairman David Rosenbloom,
a School of Public Health professor of social and behavioral sciences.
And QuitNet’s own surveys, he adds, show a direct positive correlation
between the length of time a member maintains contact with fellow “quitsters,”
as members commonly refer to themselves, and the likelihood that they
will not start smoking again.
Members like Thomas seem to feel a sense of duty about staying off cigarettes,
not just for their own benefit but also for that of their online friends.
As Thomas wrote last month in his online journal, “This year has
been long and at times very rough. . . . Do I want to smoke again? Yes,
and that is being honest. Will I smoke again? With 99 percent accuracy,
no! To those reading this one-year update, believe in yourself! . . .
. Call on me anytime for support, venting, friendship, or to chat.”
With customized versions of its Web services offered through the state
health departments of New Jersey, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming,
QuitNet became profitable last January and expects to double its seven-person
staff within a year, Rosenbloom says. It currently is preparing to launch
versions of its Web site through corporate partners Boeing and IBM, which
will offer QuitNet’s services as a benefit to their employees.
QuitNet hopes to form more partnerships with public health departments
across the country -- made possible largely by settlements from federal
tobacco lawsuits -- as well as with additional Fortune 100 companies,
says Terence Brennan, director of new ventures for the Community Technology
Fund. CTF, which was instrumental in negotiating QuitNet’s establishment
as a private company and BU’s substantial equity share in it, has
a staff member on the board of directors to provide business advice and
technical assistance.
“You can imagine the effect on a company’s life and health
insurance if its employees stop smoking,” says Brennan. “That
represents a major potential cost savings.” He says that QuitNet
also is negotiating potential partnerships with a telephone-based smoking
cessation service and a company that operates a weight-loss Web site.
QuitNet plans soon to offer members a major smoking cessation medication
at a discounted price through a partnership with the manufacturer. “Medications
are a very powerful tool in effective quitting,” says Paine, adding
that QuitNet always reminds visitors to consult a physician before taking
any medication. “We think the next stage in improving our service
will be enabling people to purchase in one place the support and the products
they need online.”
6 December 2002
Boston University
Office of University Relations