Increasing Voluntary Enrolment for a Smoking Cessation Programme

Year Submitted: 2025
Published Date: 06 November 2025

Tags: Preventive Care, Community Health, Public Awareness, Primary Care, Adherence Rate, Care Continuum, Care Process ＆ Redesign, Value Based Care, Safe Care

About this Content

Aims

Behavioural Insights (BI) was employed to increase the voluntary enrolment rates to
a smoking cessation programme offered by Health Promotion Board within Temasek
Polytechnic. The team increased the visibility of the smoking cessation programme
and the ease of sign-ups in three ways: (a) posters about the programme at identified
smoking hotspots within the campus; (b) email to the student population with carefully
designed messages; and (c) putting up signages around the Lifestyle Coaches office
where the programme is conducted. The awareness of the smoking cessation
programme amongst the general student population and the voluntary enrolment rates
to the programme were increased through these interventions.

Methods

Four BI interventions were used. Firstly, an enrolment page that made it easy for
students who wish to enrol to leave their contact details. Secondly, posters (Figure 1)
were placed at identified smoking hotspots within the campus. The posters were
designed to make enrolment to the smoking cessation programme easy by providing
different channels of enrolment (i.e., WhatsApp number, QR-code for enrolment site).
Thirdly, signages were put up around the Lifestyle Coaches office to indicate its
location and to indicate the availability of the smoking cessation programme. Lastly,
emails were sent to students to provide information about the smoking cessation
programme and with a message that reminded students about the financial cost of
smoking.

Conclusion

Students awareness levels of the smoking cessation programme increased after the
BI intervention (Figure 5). There was also an increase in the number of voluntary signups for the smoking cessation programme compared to other similar time-periods in
the past (note: the BI interventions were implemented in Term 2 of the April Semester
in AY2018/2019; Figure 6). Unfortunately, the small number of voluntary sign-ups did
not allow for a suitable statistical test to be conducted to determine which email
condition resulted in a higher probability of voluntary sign-ups.

Lessons Learnt

Reducing friction for sign-ups and raising awareness about the smoking cessation
programme increased the number of voluntary sign-ups. Prank sign-ups were
experienced in the early stages of the project. There were some non-smoking students
who were upset by the content of the email. They mistakenly thought that they received
the email as they were deemed as smokers. If these interventions were to be scaled
up, these issues must be anticipated and dealt with.

Keywords

smoking cessation, health seeking behaviours

Innovators' Details

Connect with this contributor!

Tan Wah Pheow - TAN_Wah_Pheow@tp.edu.sg

Project Attachment

176_TP_TPCABS_Increasing_Voluntary_Enrolment_for_a_Smoking_Cessation_Programme.pdf