Tobacco Cessation at FDNY

The overarching goal of this Randomized Controlled trial is to develop and test an effective, scalable intervention with potential to reach high-risk smokers undergoing CT lung cancer screening who have not engaged in or succeeded with traditional tobacco treatment approaches. The investigators will test an Enhanced Care intervention specifically designed to address multiple challenges to tobacco treatment engagement and success. First, the researchers will test opt-out enrollment in cessation treatment. The current tobacco treatment default, in which patients must opt-in to cessation treatment and are only offered counseling and pharmacotherapy when deemed ready to quit, results in missed opportunities to engage smokers into treatment. Previous studies of opt-out enrollment in cessation treatment suggest that an opt-out tobacco treatment strategy substantially increases engagement and cessation rates compared with traditional opt-in approaches. Second, proactive counseling will leverage the "reachable, teachable moment" of CT screening to motivate cessation through individually tailored messaging tied to CT results and lung function spirometry. Using CT results as a motivational tool has shown promise in pilot studies. The optimal approach and success of using CT coupled with spirometry results to motivate tobacco cessation remains unknown. Third, investigators will offer varenicline pre-loading to all enrollees, regardless of study arm, in which varenicline is initiated 4 weeks prior to target quit date. This approach is associated with decreased pre-quit tobacco-associated reward and double the rate of abstinence compared with standard varenicline treatment.

The investigators thus propose a randomized trial among retired FDNY World Trade Center Health Program responders eligible for the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program CT screening program to test the effects of Enhanced Care (opt-out enrollment, tailored counseling based on CT and spirometry results, and varenicline with preloading) against Standard Care (opt-in enrollment, standard cessation counseling without spirometry/CT tailoring, and varenicline with preloading) in the engagement of high-risk smokers in cessation treatment and the achievement of tobacco abstinence.

Inclusion criteria

• Enrolled in FDNY World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP)
• Retired
• Age ≥ 50 years old
• Self-reported current smoker on most recent questionnaire OR self-reported current smoker in the past 5 years
• 20 pack-year smoker OR 20-year smoking duration

Exclusion criteria

• Reduced renal function
• estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) <30 [CKD-EPI Creatinine Equation (2021)] at last World Trade Center (WTC) medical monitoring blood exam OR ICD10 codes for kidney disease: N04.9, N17.9, N18.9, Z94.0, E13.21, N18.9, I12.9, N00.9, N03.9
• Undergoing active cancer treatment, defined as being diagnosed on 1/1/2022 or later
• Clinical instability (e.g., hospitalization in last 3 months)
• Using varenicline in last 30 days
• Endorsing suicidal ideations: moderate or high risk on Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS)
• Screened for alcohol use disorder AUDIT>15