September 2021

The California Department of Public Health has awarded a 5-year $7.5 million grant to the UC Davis Center for Healthcare Policy and Research (CHPR) to provide intensive training and technical assistance on smoking cessation to some 40 community clinics serving at-risk populations. This smoking cessation program has been named the Healthy Living Clinic Initiative (HLCI).

HLCI’s leaders at CHPR include the Center’s Associate Director, Jeffrey Hoch, who is also professor and Chief of the Division of Health Policy and Management in the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences; Desiree Backman, Chief of the Prevention Policy and Practice Group (PPPG) at CHPR; and Neal Kohatsu, Chief Health Strategist of PPPG.

The HLCI team will use a “whole health” approach to support patients who smoke in their efforts to quit by providing them with guidance on diet, physical activity, and stress management.

“We are so excited to launch HLCI and work with California’s Department of Public Health and the community clinics to reduce tobacco use in the state,” Professor Hoch told staff of the UC Davis Health InsideOut. “Our Center at UC Davis is especially well suited to run this important initiative,” Hoch said.

[This article was adapted from “Center for Healthcare Policy and Research to lead tobacco-cessation efforts in California” published in the UC Davis Health InsideOut.]