Study title

Migrant populations usually report higher smoking rates. Among those migrant populations, Turkish- and Kurdish-speaking migrants are often overrepresented. Providing equal access to health services is one of the major challenges of our time. The need for adapted smoking-cessation treatments for Turkish-speaking populations to achieve equity in health led, in 2006, to the development and implementation of the Tiryaki-Kukla smoking-cessation program. The main objective of the project "Smoking-cessation courses for Turkish-speaking migrants in Switzerland" was to sensitize the target group to the harms of tobacco and passive smoking and to reduce the prevalence of smoking in this population and thus in the Swiss population as a whole. Thereby, a special focus is on the promotion of health literacy and setting-based prevention in the mentioned target group. To this end, the project has been organizing information events and smoking-cessation courses since 2006 (since 2010 as part of the National Stop Smoking Program) and uses Turkish-language online and print media to disseminate tobacco-specific information and raise awareness about quitting smoking. The main characteristic of the project is a participatory and relationship-based approach at all stages (information about the offer, distribution of the material, recruitment of key persons in associations or groups, recruitment of participants for the courses). The recruitment events and courses take place, for example, in associations or mosques of the Turkish and Kurdish-speaking population. The courses are held in Turkish and are free of charge for the participants. The manual for the course implementation itself has also been developed participatively in a pilot study (cf. Schnoz, Salis Gross & Cangatin, 2008).