The Department's longstanding efforts in this field have helped the institution enroll thousands of smokers in numerous smoking cessation studies. Among their notable achievements to date are:

• Development of a "scheduled smoking" approach to quitting, in which a smoker is prompted by a hand-held computer to smoke on a schedule with increasing intervals between prompts;
• Creation of a teen-savvy computerized classroom program (ASPIRE - A Smoking Prevention Interactive Experience) that has resulted in lower rates of smoking in high school; and
• Increased smoking cessation among junior high school students using computerized, personal health status feedback techniques.

Work is ongoing on several dozen other tobacco-related studies. Among them are:

• A randomized, controlled trial in 16 Texas rural and urban communities, which aims to design and test an intervention protocol for training physicians and pharmacists to effectively counsel their patients for smoking cessation;
• A project which tests a motivational intervention protocol for smoking cessation among students at the University of Houston. Individual smoking cessation treatment sessions are combined with internet "cyber-support" available 24/7;
• Research to derive factors that predict onset of smoking in white, Hispanic and African-American youth;
• Multiple studies on the role of depression in smoking behavior and smoking cessation. For example, one involves tracking depression in pregnant smokers, based on earlier findings that depression makes it harder for smokers to quit;
• Research on special populations of smokers, including low income, multi-ethnic HIV-positive persons;
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