A research team at the Health Center is examining whether adding
incentives to a treatment program will help people give up
smoking. Sheila Alessi, an assistant professor in the Department
of Psychiatry, and her collaborators are studying whether an
incentive-based behavioral intervention known as contingency
management can improve outcomes among patients using
varenicline, an approved medication for smoking cessation.
Contingency management is a type of treatment in which patients
receive incentives or prizes for “good” behavior – in this case,
not smoking. “If a behavioral therapy such as contingency
management can improve early response to varenicline,” says
Alessi, “more patients may achieve abstinence, which should be
associated with long-term abstinence and health benefits.”
Tobacco use is the single most avoidable cause of death in the
U.S. According to data from the state Department of Public
Health, smoking kills more than 5,000 in Connecticut every year,
yet more than 25 percent of the state’s popul