Trends in motives for trying to stop smoking: a population study in England, 2018–2023

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Abstract

Introduction

Since 2020, people in England have lived through a global pandemic and national cost-of-living and healthcare crises, each of which might have affected motivations to stop smoking.

Objective

To examine changes in the factors motivating people to stop smoking over this period.

Methods

Data were drawn from a nationally representative monthly cross-sectional survey in England, 2018–2023. Participants were 5777 past-year smokers who made one or more serious attempt to quit in the past year. Participants reported factors contributing to their most recent attempt to quit. We estimated time trends in the proportion of attempts to quit that were motivated by (i) health concerns, (ii) cost, (iii) social factors and (iv) health professional advice, and calculated prevalence ratios (PRs) for the change in prevalence across the whole time series (May 2023 vs March 2018).

Results

Up to 2020, one in two attempts to quit were motivated by health concerns (mean monthly proportion 51.0%), one in five by social factors (20.2%) and cost (19.9%) and one in six by health professional advice (16.5%). In 2020, the proportion of attempts to quit motivated by health concerns, social factors and cost increased—to high levels of 56.2%, 23.9% and 25.8%, respectively—and those motivated by health professional advice fell to 8.0%. Rises in health-related and social motives soon returned to baseline levels (52.0% in May 2023 vs 52.5% in March 2018; PR=0.99, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.14) or below baseline (16.0% vs 21.6%; PR=0.74, 95% CI 0.54 to 1.01), respectively. However, attempts to quit motivated by cost increased further during 2022–2023 (reaching 25.4% in May 2023 vs 19.1% in March 2019; PR=1.33, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.76) and those motivated by health professional advice remained suppressed (8.5% vs 14.2%; PR=0.60, 95% CI 0.40 to 0.89).

Conclusions

Health concerns are the most common motive for trying to stop smoking. The relative importance of other motives has shifted since 2020, with cost motivating a greater proportion of attempts to quit, and social factors and health professional advice motivating a smaller proportion.

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Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science

Emily A. Holmes, Rory C O'Connor, V. Perry … (2020)

Summary The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having a profound effect on all aspects of society, including mental health and physical health. We explore the psychological, social, and neuroscientific effects of COVID-19 and set out the immediate priorities and longer-term strategies for mental health science research. These priorities were informed by surveys of the public and an expert panel convened by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and the mental health research charity, MQ: Transforming Mental Health, in the first weeks of the pandemic in the UK in March, 2020. We urge UK research funding agencies to work with researchers, people with lived experience, and others to establish a high level coordination group to ensure that these research priorities are addressed, and to allow new ones to be identified over time. The need to maintain high-quality research standards is imperative. International collaboration and a global perspective will be beneficial. An immediate priority is collecting high-quality data on the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across the whole population and vulnerable groups, and on brain function, cognition, and mental health of patients with COVID-19. There is an urgent need for research to address how mental health consequences for vulnerable groups can be mitigated under pandemic conditions, and on the impact of repeated media consumption and health messaging around COVID-19. Discovery, evaluation, and refinement of mechanistically driven interventions to address the psychological, social, and neuroscientific aspects of the pandemic are required. Rising to this challenge will require integration across disciplines and sectors, and should be done together with people with lived experience. New funding will be required to meet these priorities, and it can be efficiently leveraged by the UK's world-leading infrastructure. This Position Paper provides a strategy that may be both adapted for, and integrated with, research efforts in other countries.

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The Socio-Economic Implications of the Coronavirus and COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review

Maria R.C. Nicola, Zaid Alsafi, Catrin Sohrabi … (2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 1.4 million confirmed cases and over 83,000 deaths globally. It has also sparked fears of an impending economic crisis and recession. Social distancing, self-isolation and travel restrictions forced a decrease in the workforce across all economic sectors and caused many jobs to be lost. Schools have closed down, and the need of commodities and manufactured products has decreased. In contrast, the need for medical supplies has significantly increased. The food sector has also seen a great demand due to panic-buying and stockpiling of food products. In response to this global outbreak, we summarise the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 on individual aspects of the world economy.