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The California Tobacco Control Alliance is a statewide coalition working to reduce tobacco use in California. The Alliance accomplishes this through collaboration between traditional tobacco control constituencies and inclusion of new partners not traditionally associated with tobacco control. Founded in 1997, the Alliance has convened representatives of public, private, nonprofit and academic interests in pursuit of a comprehensive statewide tobacco control strategy, which complements the statewide tobacco control program. Originally established to address tobacco use along a broad spectrum of issues, the Alliance received primary funding in 1997 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s SmokeLess States National Program to launch three flagship initiatives: (1) youth advocacy (2) involvement with the entertainment industry and (3) collaboration with managed care organizations. In 2001, the Alliance received continued funding from the SmokeLess States National Program to direct organization efforts exclusively on the third initiative. This refining of the Alliance’s purpose to impacting the managed care environment provides an opportunity to focus on cessation, an aspect of tobacco control that is critical to decreasing the smoking rates in California. The Alliance has convened a Managed Care Working Group to design a new cessation health benefit, establish a model for its delivery and pursue policy strategies to ensure statewide implementation. By working with managed care organizations, health care providers and health care purchasers, the Alliance engages the primary parties that have the power to make a change in California’s health care landscape. Addressing tobacco cessation programs at the health system level offers an ideal opportunity to effectively utilize and direct the resources and expertise already integrated in the health care delivery structure. In addition to the private and public sector interests represented on the Managed Care Working Group, a diverse group of organizations comprises the Alliance’s core membership. Alliance Charter Members members include a diversity of organizations that support tobacco control efforts in public health, health care, academic, law enforcement and community sectors. The Alliance is also a founding member of the Pacific Center on Health and Tobacco, a collaboration between organizations in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington working to implement and evaluate comprehensive and effective statewide tobacco cessation services. Through the Pacific Center, the Alliance brings resources, lessons and best practices from other Pacific states to the California tobacco control community. The Alliance is also a member of the national Roundtable on Statewide Tobacco Cessation Services, a project of the Center for Tobacco Cessation. The focus of the Roundtable is to share state-level experiences in developing comprehensive cessation services, in order to promote improvements for tobacco cessation across the nation.
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