On a personal level, individuals who moved 500 meters farther away during the study were 57% more likely to stop smoking after the move, even when risk factors for relapse such as marriage, health status, and financial situation were added to the equation. Three months after the pay-to-quit program started, 44.4 percent of smokers who received money said they had been abstinent continuously, compared with 6.4 percent of those not paid.
Advertisement
Smokers who quit have more opportunities to spend time at smoke-free places, such as restaurants, bars, clubs and stores. There were 36% of those in the paid group to continue to quit at 6th month. On average, individuals had an annual income of about $20,000 and smoked about 16 cigarettes a day. At 18 months, 1 in 10 (9.5%) who received money still weren’t smoking vs 3.7% of those who weren’t paid. Forty-three percent were students and 19 percent were unemployed. They all received instructional booklets and access to a website with information about quitting.
“Smokers are afraid of losing their friends” to the nonsmoking world, Piper said, adding that until now, no one has really studied what happens to relationships when people quit smoking. “The maximum amount doled out was $1,650”. They were periodically tested to verify whether or not they were smoking. Study populations included 15,218 smokers and former smokers from one study and 5,511 from the second study. Retail outlets in residential neighbourhoods have gotten attention as potential targets for policies to reduce smoking, researchers said.
A study published August 15 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that each one-third mile increase in the distance between a person’s house and a store with cigarettes was associated with a 20 to 60 percent increase in likelihood of quitting.
Advertisement
“Our findings are consistent with a more general principle, ‘Make the healthier choice the easier choice, ‘” Kivimaki said. The researchers used logistic regression in between-individual analyses and conditional logistic regression in case-crossover design analyses to examine change in walking distance from home to the nearest tobacco outlet as a predictor of quitting smoking in smokers and smoking relapse in ex-smokers. “Reduced availability of tobacco products, which was supported by our findings, complements public health policies that aim to create environments that facilitate integration of physical activity into daily lives and legislation that support healthful diet choices”.
