European network of quit lines – capacity building and social exclusion programme
Alice Roberts, ENQ Project Manager and Kawaldip Sehmi, Director of Health and Equality, QUIT/ENQ, London, UK

Abstract
The European Network of Quit lines (ENQ) is a community of practice that exists to build capacity and develop and share best practice in Quit lines across Europe. Established in 2000 with six original partners, the network has gone from strength to strength, and today the number of ENQ partners has grown to 30 member countries, with Romania and Bulgaria welcomed most recently (www.enqonline.org).

Presented with a World Health Organisation World No Tobacco Day Award in 2007, ENQ’s achievements were recognised for supporting tobacco control and smoking cessation in Europe, as well as strengthening national action and international collaboration. ENQ’s Capacity Building and Social Exclusion Programme to advance public health in Central and Eastern Europe will help to develop effective strategies to reach and support socially excluded communities who are not accessing mainstream smoking cessation support. These communities may include those on the lowest incomes, different minority ethnic communities, smokers with diverse disabilities, lone parents, and young people.

The programme will ensure that participating countries build the capacity to provide a quality accessible intervention to assist socially excluded smokers in these countries and bridge the health inequalities gap. Strategies will be developed to enable each Quitline to reach and help more smokers from socially excluded communities, and to improve the effectiveness of the intervention through higher quit rate outcomes.