Many health benefits arise from quitting smoking. There would be a reduction in the prevalence of smoking-related illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, and lung disease and an increase in the quality of life for former smokers, as well as for those closest to them, by erasing the impact of secondhand smoke.

The use of commercial tobacco in the US, which excludes the use of tobacco for ceremonial practices engaged in by Native American communities, contributes greatly to mortality and morbidity.

Quitline services in the US help to counteract smoking-related public health issues by offering free accessible advice and smoking cessation resources to help smokers quit; these services are particularly beneficial to those who may face barriers to clinical assessment.

Quitline services have proved to be effective evidence-based strategies for reducing smoking; however, service uptake and usage stratified by participant demographics such as socioeconomic status (SES) is less well characterised, so Tetlow and colleagues conducted a study published this year in Preventing Chronic Disease, to address this gap in the literature.

Data from 182,544 quitline users aged 12 years and older who had received at least one service were analysed; patient information was extracted from 2019 from the National Quitline Data Warehouse.

The coverage of patient data spans 39 states in the US and the District of Columbia; intake data was self-reported by smokers during registration of a quitline service.

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User income could not be ascertained, so SES was determined by the level of education attainment and enrollment in Medicaid, which is the national insurance system provided to those with low incomes in the US, and Medicare, which is the national insurance system for those 65 years and above or under 65 years with certain disabilities.

Markedly, 80.4% of quitline users had less than a college or university degree, and 70.4% were insured or enrolled in Medicaid or Medicare even though previous studies had shown lower awareness of quitline services among lower-income households.

Low SES users also received higher proportions of telephone counselling and cessation medication compared to those with a high SES.

Those in the 25-44 years and 45-64 years age categories made up the largest proportions of quitline service users, 32.6% and 48.2%, respectively, but telephone and cessation medication usage was highest in the 12-17 years age group, despite only making up 0.1% of the quitline user population. 

Utilising data to effectively target what demographic to expand quitline services’ reach of treatment and awareness to in the US could greatly help in smoking cessation cases.

Currently, GlobalData epidemiologists have predicted that by the end of 2023, the country will have 63 million prevalent cases of men and women aged 15 years and above who were former smokers and have quit for more than six months; that number is projected to increase to 69 million by the end of 2031.

If successfully ensuring quitline programmes are pushed to the demographics who need it the most and are the most disproportionately affected, then that number could increase.  

Two major conclusions can be drawn from the findings of this study.

First, the majority of quitline users were predominantly of lower SES. So, despite lower awareness of quitline services in low SES populations, this demographic benefitted the most from its service.

Second, younger users, 12-17 years, were more receptive to receiving telephone counselling and cessation medication; thus, expanding the quitline reach to this age demographic could result in larger positive impacts.Â