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  8. Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment Tool

Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment Tool

Tobacco control program staff have a unique opportunity to encourage the integration of tobacco treatment by providing technical assistance and support to behavioral health teams, clinical providers, organizations, agencies and systems serving people with mental illness and substance use disorders. 

Ready to view your organization’s tobacco treatment integration report?

Take The Assessment

The American Lung Association has developed the Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment Tool . This interactive assessment for behavioral health teams and organizations helps identify organizational strengths and targets to further integration in four key areas:  Adopting a Tobacco-Free Environment, Strategies for Integrating Tobacco Treatment, Building Staff Capacity to Provide Tobacco Treatment, Quality Improvement and Sustainability. The Lung Association's Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment Tool will automatically generate a scored summary report that is emailed to the person taking the assessment. This tool is available for use by all tobacco control program staff and other public health professionals and their community partners that are working towards system changes.

The scored Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment report can help point organizational leadership teams towards areas of opportunity within their system to further their objectives to integrating comprehensive tobacco treatment. The results of the Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment can also guide tobacco control program staff towards curated resources to provide technical assistance to community partners in behavioral health.  

The Lung Association Team encourages tobacco control program staff to explore the assessment. 

Tobacco control program staff can also share the assessment with key champions that are leading the change efforts to integrate tobacco into their organization.  

Using the Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment Tool focus areas: 

Support behavioral health staff to enact a comprehensive tobacco-free policy that includes buildings, vehicles, grounds and expectations for staff, visitors, and clients/patients.

How the Assessment Works

The Assessment’s Adopting a Tobacco-Free Environment Score reflects both strengths and targets for improvement in: Enacting a comprehensive tobacco-free policy that includes buildings, vehicles, grounds and expectations for staff, visitors, and clients.

Support behavioral health staff to integrate tobacco treatment into assessment, treatment planning, and implementation; provide organizations with resources and tools to incorporate tobacco treatment into other ongoing efforts toward wellness and recovery. Encourage the co-treatment of tobacco use disorder as a strategy in whole person primary care & behavioral health systems.

How the Assessment Works

The Assessment’s Strategies for Integrating Tobacco Treatment Score reflects both strengths and targets for improvement in promoting wellness by integrating evidence-based tobacco treatment into routine clinical practice.

Provide training resources that supports behavioral health teams to treat and/or prevent tobacco dependence. Teach teams how to bill for reimbursement and utilize other resources to pay for tobacco treatment services. Support organizational staff with tools and strategies to assess tobacco use regularly and provide tobacco treatment using evidence-based counseling and FDA-Approved medications. Encourage organizational policies that help staff who use tobacco to access treatment services.

How the Assessment Works

The Assessment’s Building Staff Capacity to Provide Tobacco Treatment Score reflects both strengths and targets for improvement in training, utilizing resources, and providing help for staff access tobacco treatment.

Encourage organizational leadership to conduct quality improvement activities to define outcomes, monitor progress, and improve tobacco treatment services. Ensure access without barriers through state Medicaid and other third-party payers.

How the Assessment Works

The Assessment’s Quality Improvement and Sustainability Score reflects both strengths and targets for improvement in conducting quality improvement activities to define outcomes, monitor progress, and improve tobacco treatment services.

American Lung Association’s Tobacco Treatment: Integration Assessment Tool was inspired by the companion Self-Assessment to the Kansas Tobacco Guideline For Behavioral Health Care.

 The NAMI Kansas Self-Assessment: Kansas Tobacco Guideline for Behavioral Health Care was adapted from the Index for Tobacco Treatment Quality (ITTQ)1

Special thanks to:
Rick Cagan
Director, Behavioral Health Tobacco Project
National Alliance on Mental Illness – NAMI Kansas

Kim Richter, PhD, MPH, NCTTP
Director, UKanQuit, University of Kansas Hospital
Professor, Population Health, University of Kansas School of Medicine

Dee Vernberg, PhD, MPH, BSN  
Senior Analyst
Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health

Nami KS


  1. Grant Number R21DA020489 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse funded the development of the ITTQ. Cupertino AP, Hunt JJ, Gajewski BJ, Jiang Y, Marquis J, Friedmann PD, Engelman KK, Richter KP. The index of tobacco treatment quality: development of a tool to assess evidence-based treatment in a national sample of drug treatment facilities. Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy. 2013 Mar 15;8:13. doi: 10.1186/1747-597X-8-13. PMID: 23497366; PMCID: PMC3704700.

Page last updated: August 13, 2021

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