Large Randomized Clinical Trial Validates 2Morrow’s Digital Health Approach to Behavior-modification and Proves That Apps Can Help Smokers Quit
2Morrow, Inc.’s proprietary digital health approach to behavior modification continues to be shown effective for helping smokers quit in a large randomized clinical trial (RCT) conducted by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The trial followed 2,415 participants for 12 months to determine the efficacy of an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based app for smoking cessation vs an app based on US clinical practice guidelines (USCPG). ACT app users not only were more engaged and satisfied, but at 12 months, were 50% more likely to quit than those using the smartphone application based on the USCPG.
“This is a landmark study that fast-forwards the field of digital health, including its critical application during the COVID-19 pandemic helping people who smoke quit,” says Tim McAfee, MD, MPH, Former Director, Office on Smoking & Health, CDC. “The Fred Hutch researchers meticulously recruited and engaged a diverse sample of smokers, successfully retaining over 85% of those for 12 months. The size of the quitting effect and the difference between the ACT app and the comparison app was similar to effects seen in successful drug trials, providing very compelling evidence that using this app will help people quit smoking.”
This study comes at a time when the healthcare industry is experiencing an unprecedented increase in the adoption of digital health services, partly due to COVID-19. This study provides a major contribution to the burgeoning area of digital therapeutics (DTx) research that is relatively new and essential for widespread acceptance and adoption of digital tools in healthcare.
In 2013, 2Morrow collaborated with Fred Hutch on the development of an app for one of the first randomized trials of an app for quitting smoking. After that first study, 2Morrow exclusively licensed the proprietary ACT based technology from Fred Hutch. This new research and 2Morrow’s commercial products both grew from that early digital health collaboration.
“We are excited about the size, rigor and results of this new study. It provides gold standard evidence and validation that changing behavior through the use of digital therapeutics is highly effective,” says Jo Masterson, CEO, 2Morrow. “I see this research as a major milestone toward realizing the promise of digital health, including increased access, improved outcomes and lower costs.”
