Tailored mobile messaging contributed to the fight to end smoking waterpipe tobacco by young adults by helping 49% of its 349 participants stop using the product.

The Food and Drug Administration said hookah (waterpipe) smokers absorb more harmful chemicals seen in cigarettes because the smoking sessions are longer.

“Waterpipe tobacco smoking is often associated with other tobacco use among young  people,” said Darren Mays, principal investigator of the study and a member of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. “As a public health community, we are very concerned about rising rates of dual- and poly-tobacco product use, particularly among adolescents and young adults. In the future, it will be important to study how our intervention affects use of waterpipe along with other tobacco products, such as cigarettes and electronic cigarettes, among young people.”

The study addressed only waterpipe tobacco smoking; it didn’t look at other tobacco use. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “each day, about 2,000 people younger than 18 years smoke their first cigarette.”

“In the United States, hookah tobacco smoking is most prevalent among young adults,” said Mays, an associate professor in the Ohio State College of Medicine Division of Medical Oncology. “Our study is one of the first to demonstrate that a tailored mobile messaging intervention can motivate young adult hookah smokers to quit. This technology-based intervention is scalable to implement at the population-level.”

All participants underwent baseline evaluation before the beginning of the six-week intervention trial to gauge perceived associated  “riskiness” of smoking, personal motivation to quit and waterpipe smoking frequency and cessation.