Smoking Cessation Intervention for Women Living With HIV

As people with HIV/AIDS live longer, the burden of non-AIDS-related health problems such as cardiovascular diseases and cancers on these people have consistently increased. Smoking is one of the major contributing factors to these health problems and rates of cigarette smoking in this group are substantially higher than those of the general population: 40-70% vs. 17-10%. Especially, women living with HIV/AIDS seem to be more susceptible to the negative consequence of smoking than their male counterparts. They are also less likely to see tobacco dependence treatment for dual stigma associated with both conditions: HIV infection and nicotine addiction. This is a pilot study to develop smoking cessation intervention for these women.