Beginning this week, the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department is offering a cash incentive to local smokers attempting to kick the habit.

Focusing on parents, the Health Department’s new initiative will reward $85 to any mom or dad who completes its first-ever “Freedom From Smoking” program.

“There’s been a decrease in smoking rates nationally, and we’re seeing that locally as well, but there are still so many people that smoke that it’s still regarded as the number-one most preventable public health problem,” said Charlie Bryan, the Health Department’s community health planner.

Sponsored by the American Lung Association, the “Freedom From Smoking Program” offers three pathways to quitting tobacco use. Participants can either: undergo an online course, complete a self-guided handbook (copies are distributed at the Health Department offices’ front desk) or attend a face-to-face class at the Health Department, 200 Maine St. The $85 reward will be distributed to participants after completion.

Thanks in part to the passage of the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act, which bans smoking from public buildings and indoor places of employment, most of us likely won’t encounter smoking on a daily basis, Bryan said. And while that’s objectively a good thing, it’s also, perhaps, created some misconceptions about how serious a problem smoking remains in the Lawrence area and across the country, he adds.

One in seven Douglas County residents identified themselves as smokers in 2013, according to the Kansas Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System. Although local efforts to reduce tobacco use in the region have been generally successful over the years, “there are some groups that have been left behind in our progress,” Bryan said, namely pregnant women.

That’s why the Health Department’s “Freedom From Smoking” program focuses primarily on parents, particularly mothers and mothers-to-be. In Douglas County, Bryan said, 11.7 percent of births from 2012 to 2014 were from mothers who had reported smoking during their pregnancy.

“And that’s a problem. It’s a problem for the baby, it’s a problem for the mom,” said Bryan, citing concerns about low birth weights and increases in infant mortality linked to tobacco use by mothers.

It’s often said that kids absorb parents’ words and actions like little sponges. Cigarette smoke can also quite literally be absorbed into upholstery, clothing and carpeting, leaving children vulnerable to embedded carcinogens in whatever surfaces they touch, play with or breathe on.

The threat of secondhand and thirdhand smoke makes it crucial that parents — dads, too — prioritize efforts to quit smoking once and for all, Bryan said.

He realizes those efforts can be difficult and often aren’t met with success on the first try. Generally, he said, it takes about seven attempts before ultimately quitting for good.

And smokers don’t immediately start out consuming a pack a day — they learn through practice, eventually becoming addicted to a habit that kills more than 6 million people annually, according to the American Cancer Society.

“Learning to quit is the same process,” Bryan said. “You have to practice, practice, practice quitting.”

The Health Department’s face-to-face classes will meet from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays from Nov. 17 to Dec. 20, with the exception of Thanksgiving and Dec. 1. The deadline to enroll is 5 p.m. Wednesday, while the Health Department is asking that participants complete the other two options — online courses or the self-guided handbook — by Dec. 15, allowing for about a month to finish the program.

Parents can sign up by contacting Bryan at 843-3060 or info@ldchealth.org.