The American Association of Health Plan’s (AAHP) Awards Programme, Managed Care Achievements in Tobacco Control, is an opportunity to recognise health plans’ efforts to increase interest in and capacity for reducing the health problems caused by tobacco. The awards recognise and honor the innovative and practical strategies, practices, programmes, and policies used by health plans to establish effective tobacco prevention and cessation interventions.

 The Managed Care Achievements in Tobacco Control awards programme encourages health plans to build upon the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research’s (AHCPR) guideline on smoking cessation, using evidence-based standards and the demonstrated strategies which are outlined in the guideline.1 By honouring these exceptional efforts, AAHP demonstrates the commitment of health plans to promote widespread adoption of effective tobacco control interventions into routine clinical practice.

Tobacco control intervention opportunities are diverse; they can range from clinical, outpatient counselling in community settings, to behavioural and pharmacological cessation programmes—they can involve physicians, allied health professionals, and employers. Aspiring toward national standards for tobacco control requires creative solutions which are adaptable and reproducible in a variety of managed care settings, as demonstrated by the Managed Care Achievements in Tobacco Control award winners. The following award-winning examples (abstracts of which are published here) will assist in identifying barriers and developing resourceful programmes to improve smoking cessation rates within organisations, as well as the community at large. The American Association of Health Plans and the Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care National Technical Assistance Office (NTAO) believe that by sharing these programmes and methods we will be one step closer to conquering the leading preventable cause of illness and death in the United States—tobacco use.

The awards programme is one of many national activities supported by the NTAO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care (ATMC) programme. …