Evaluation of a London-wide smoking cessation campaign targeting the Muslim population
Smoking rates amongst Muslim men are very high. The National Health Service for London conducted a London-wide campaign to curb smoking amongst Muslims. ETHNOS was commissioned to evaluate the overall campaign.
Our approach:
We employed a range of techniques to understand how well the messages of the campaign were received by the target populations:
- A postal survey of all London mosques to assess their awareness and opinions of the campaign.
- An audit of promotional and educational activities carried out by campaign personnel.
- A call audit analysis of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Turkish smokers’ helplines.
- In-depth interviews with Imams and Directors of Mosques.
- In-depth interviews with campaign organisers.
- Focus groups with Muslim smokers from different ethnic minority communities.
Outcome
The evaluation showed the effectiveness of the promotional material in generating awareness of the campaign and in stimulating calls to the different helplines, and the relative impact made by the different media in encouraging smoking cessation. The evaluation led to recommendations on a range of organisational matters.