Smoking Cessation More Challenging for Underprivileged

New research finds that quitting smoking is doubly hard if you are poor and uneducated. Researchers from The City College of New York followed smokers from different socioeconomic backgrounds after they had completed a statewide smoking cessation program in Arkansas. After a program of cognitive-behavioral therapy, either with or without nicotine patches, underprivileged and those from higher social economic backgrounds were able to quit at about the same rate. However, as time progressed, a significant number of the underprivileged returned to smoking. Those with the fewest social and financial resources had the hardest time staving off cravings over the long run. The study is titled Socioeconomic Disparities in Community-Based Treatment of Tobacco Dependence, published in the American Journal of Public Health.

“The poorer they are, the worse it gets,” said clinical psychologist Christine Sheffer, Ph.D., who directed the program. Shaffer discovered smokers on the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder were 55 percent more likely than those at the upper end to start smoking again three months after treatment. By six months post-quitting, the probability of their going back to cigarettes jumped to 2-1/2 times that of the more affluent smokers.

As part of the study, Sheffer and her colleagues noted that overall, Americans with household incomes of $15,000 or less smoke at nearly three times the rate of those with incomes of $50,000 or greater. Smoking is still the greatest cause of preventable death and disease in the U.S. today, noted Sheffer. “And it’s a growing problem in developing countries.” Sheffer believes there are several reasons why it may be harder for some to give up tobacco permanently. Stress is a common reason for nicotine addiction. Unfortunately, those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale suffer more hardships than those at the top, in the form of financial difficulties, discrimination, and job insecurity, to name a few. And for those smokers who started as teenagers, they may have never learned other ways to manage stress, Sheffer said.

Read more on the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America website. Read more on MedlinePlus. Read the abstract of the study.

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