Active Studies

As of January 2025, UW-CTRI had four active studies. These included:

1. Breaking Addiction to Tobacco for Health 2 (BREATHE 2). As part of their fifth consecutive, five-year NIH Center grant, researchers at the University of Wisconsin are comparing the most effective treatments to help people quit smoking in real-world clinics, with a goal of tailoring and optimizing help to people who smoke. UW-CTRI is partnering with health systems to treat more than 4,000 clinic patients. They’re reaching out to patients listed as people who smoke in electronic health records to help those who are ready to quit and motivate those who aren’t. About 25 million people who smoke in America make a primary care visit each year, but only about five percent of people who smoke who try to quit use the cessation counseling and medication we know can help. In this study, the research team will reach out to them and offer these treatments. May 2019-May 2025, $12.5 million. Funded by the National Cancer Institute, NIH. Drs. Timothy Baker and Michael Fiore, PIs.
2. UW-CTRI Outreach Program–JUUL Settlement. UW-CTRI has a grant to work with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Tobacco Prevention and Control Program to help individuals ages 18-24 quit vaping. UW-CTRI will develop content for a brief, scalable, single-session intervention to help young adult quit vaping. Decisions about content and how the material would be presented will be co-designed with input from young adults, using focus groups of people who are ages 18-24 and currently or previously vape(d). The primary outcomes will be engagement with the intervention as well as changes in key attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intention about quitting vaping. Karen Conner coordinates these efforts. January-December 2025, $386,000. Funded by the Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention and Control Program (TPCP). Jesse Kaye, PI.
3. R35 Outstanding Investigator Award. This seven-year grant will empower UW-CTRI to identify and disseminate effective, innovative ways to help cancer patients quit smoking. Specifically, UW-CTRI researchers, led by grant PI Dr. Michael Fiore and co-I Danielle McCarthy, will further evaluate innovative approaches to helping cancer patients who smoke to quit. They’ll advance knowledge regarding interventions and health-system changes that will support more patients living with cancer to break free from tobacco dependence. Research studies supported by this grant will identify effective interventions to help people with cancer quit smoking for good, as well as efficient and equitable ways to connect cancer patients with such treatments. UW-CTRI will work with diverse cancer-care programs across the nation to assist with implementing evidence-based smoking treatment for patients living with cancer. They’ll develop guides to disseminate the best strategies to cancer centers nationwide. UW-CTRI Researcher Mark Zehner will manage the project. December 2022-December 2029, $6.5 million. Funded by the National Cancer Institute. Michael Fiore, PI.
4. Motivating Change in Aging People Who Smoke. This K23 award funds a research study to increase smoking cessation in adults aged 50 and older. While these adults smoke at lower rates (8.2%) than the general population (13%), their cessation rates are also lower, in part because they are less likely to be advised to quit or offered help by providers. A common misperception is that mature adults can’t or won’t quit and, if they do, they won’t benefit from it. But the research reflects the contrary. When they do try to quit, they’re generally more successful than younger people, especially when they use evidenced-based treatments (which double their success). The study will run qualitative interviews to look at what might motivate older adults to quit. One potential incentive is pointing out that quitting smoking can reduce risk for cognitive decline—commonly cited as the greatest fear among mature adults, but one yet to be used for motivation with smoking cessation. UW-CTRI will recruit participants via signs, posters, calls from each person’s clinic, and a letter to motivate and offer treatment. Researchers will compare that to a clinic with no message and a clinic with a standard motivational method. The group plans to run the study at three clinics in the same health system. They’ll be tuned into any behavioral health symptoms and the socioeconomic status of the participants to better analyze and interpret results. Drs. Megan Piper, Carey Gleason, Jane Mahoney, and Jessica Cook are serving as co-mentors to Principal Investigator Dr. Adrienne Johnson. May 2021-Feb 2026, $782,000. Funded by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Adrienne Johnson, PI.

For a live look at current UW-CTRI Studies, click here.