Tobacco use remains a persistent health issue in Canada, but is often under treated. In particular, low-income women who smoke face socially complex factors that impact tobacco reduction and cessation, including experiences of trauma and violence, caregiving burdens, financial stress, and housing and food insecurity. In Canada, there is a critical need to improve tobacco reduction and cessation support specifically designed for women who experience such inequities.
The Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health is developing the Liberation intervention, a virtual social support group for tobacco reduction for/with low-income women. This program is emerging in partnership with women’s resource centres across the country.
What is our approach?
Liberation will:
- Expand women’s understanding of sex/gender, economic, historical, and socio-structural factors influencing smoking and cessation, while increasing women’s coping skills and knowledge of reduction and cessation treatments and aids.
- Strengthen women’s ability to manage financial and emotional stress.
- Support women’s tobacco reduction and cessation through access to peer support, sharing of successes and challenges, tools for goal setting and planning for change, self-efficacy, mindfulness, ability to manage withdrawal symptoms and cravings, relapse prevention strategies, and self-compassion.
- Reach women’s resource centres, tobacco cessation services, and healthcare providers with information and resources on tobacco cessation for low-income women who smoke.
Principles informing the Liberation intervention:
- Strengths/resilience-based
- Trauma-informed
- Harm reduction and relapse prevention oriented
- Inclusive of social and structural determinants of health
- Evidence-based
- Centred on women’s voices and lived experiences
Who are we working with?
We are working with women’s centres across Canada, beginning with four centres which have agreed to collaborate with us in the pilot.
Key Resources
- Our previous work on women and tobacco, including info sheets and guides, toolkits, reports, training, journal articles and participation in the International Network of Women Against Tobacco (INWAT), described here
- Resource sheet describing women-specific programs and resources on tobacco use designed for women Soon to be posted
- Summary of a scoping review about tobacco interventions designed for women Soon to be posted
CEWH acknowledges the financial support of Health Canada, Substance Use and Addictions Program