A recent study from Boston Medical Center, Boston University’s affiliated hospital, found that financial incentives and personalized patient support may encourage smokers to kick their habit.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medicine Association last week, showed that smokers given financial incentives at six and 12-month marks who also partnered with a patient navigator to provide support were more likely to quit smoking than patients without these resources.
The study stated that its objective was “to evaluate a multicomponent intervention to promote smoking cessation among low-SES [socioeconomic status] and minority smokers,” as tobacco use is the primary cause of preventable death in the United States, and smoking is more prevalent among low-SES and minority populations.
Lisa Quintiliani, a BU School of Medicine professor and one of the researchers involved in the study, said the study differentiated itself from previous ones by focusing on minority populations.
“We showed that when you can design a program that is made for the unique needs of low-income smokers who belong to racial and ethnic minority groups, as the population from BMC often is,” Quintiliani said, “with navigation and financial incentives, we could show increasing cessation rates.”
While smoking cessation rates were higher among the intervention group than the control group, these rates were still fairly low. Approximately 12 percent of the intervention group ultimately quit smoking by the 12-month mark, compared with approximately two percent of the control group.
Quintiliani maintained that the results were encouraging, with 12 percent being a higher quit rate than usual.
“If we could show that this intervention worked on a population-wide basis,” Quintiliani said, “having 12 percent of smokers quit would be quite a success.”
However, coming up with funding to implement financial incentives for smoking cessation may be difficult, she added. Those in the intervention group received $750 apiece.
Quintiliani said the findings of the study could have a positive impact on public health beyond smoking cessation.
“If we really could take this patient navigation model further,” Quintiliani said, “it’s possible that navigators could help this patient population connect with other health resources too, beyond smoking cessation.”
Leonard Glantz, the associate dean of academic affairs in the School of Public Health, said the study’s findings open up a new array of questions.
“What’s not known about this study is, what if you just offered people $250 to quit after six months, and 500 additional dollars six months after that? Would that have worked?” Glantz said. “What also isn’t known is whether or not this leads to long-term smoking cessation.”
Wendy Mariner, a professor of health law, ethics and human rights in SPH, said a number of factors contribute to minorities being disproportionately affected by smoking and smoking-related deaths.
“Minorities just proportionately have higher rates of death generally, and that’s due to a lot of things,” Mariner said, “smoking among them, but also poverty, poor housing, low-paying jobs, lack of access to transportation, lack of access to good, healthy food, high stress levels, discrimination.”
Mariner said that while the study is encouraging in some respects, more work needs to be done to figure out how to increase smoking cessation rates.
“I think what we have to figure out is what to do with the 88 percent who don’t quit,” Mariner said.
Several students said while the study’s results were encouraging, more research should be done to raise smoking cessation rates further.
Amelia Griffiths, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she thinks while financial incentives may be helpful, she thinks the patient navigation aspect of the experiment is equally important.
“As coaxing as $250 or $500 is, it’s not going to necessarily guide you through the process,” Griffiths said, “so I think having a person there for you is probably just as helpful.”
Lindsey Rosenblatt, a freshman in the College of Communication, said she thinks even a seemingly low cessation rate can be encouraging.
“Smoking is very addictive, and it’s very hard to let go,” Rosenblatt said. “I think it’s very unusual to be able to stop smoking, and so I think 12 percent is actually a pretty good percentage for the results of that experiment.”
Connor Follis, a CAS senior, said he thinks in addition to the methods employed in the study, quantifying the benefits of smoking cessation to smokers might encourage them to quit.
“Maybe just giving those who are attempting to quit information on how they are actually bettering their own lives [could be helpful],” Follis said. “[Like] statistics on the beneficial changes that are happening within their body or the long-term economic savings that they may be incurring by not smoking and choosing to stop now.”
Jennifer Small is a junior in the Boston University College of Communication, majoring in journalism and minoring in media science. She is one of the Co-Campus News Editors for Spring 2023.
