Baskerville NB, Azagba S, Norman C, McKeown K, Brown KS. (2016). Effect of a digital social media campaign on young adult smoking cessation. Nicotine and Tobacco Research. 18(3): 351-360. doi: 10.1093/ntr/ntv119
The Break-it-Off (BIO) campaign is a Canadian multicomponent smoking cessation intervention for young adults that uses ending a romantic relationship as a metaphor for quitting smoking. The BIO campaign involves a website and mobile app that are integrated with social media. The website guides users through the stages of quitting smoking using the metaphor of breaking up with a romantic partner (i.e. “get it over with”, “stay split up”, “move on with life”) and provides information about methods of quitting smoking. Users can upload videos about their “break-up” with smoking on YouTube and share information about their quit attempt on Facebook. The BIO campaign app provides time-sensitive information to users about avoiding smoking at times when people often want to smoke (e.g. when they are bored, stressed, or intoxicated). During a three month period, the BIO website had 44,172 visits (37,325 unique visitors) and the app was downloaded 3,937 times. Content was shared on social media by 339 users. In a quasi-experimental trial comparing the BIO campaign (n=102) to a smoking help line (n=136), BIO users had higher rates of 7- and 30-day point prevalence abstinence and made more quit attempts over a 3-month period compared to help line users.