Here Comes the Quitting Season

It’s official – more people try to quit smoking in January and March than in any other months of the year.

First up are the New Year quitters – keen to make the most of their New Year’s resolutions and kick the habit. Then comes the ‘No Smoking Day effect’, with the high profile media coverage supported by hundreds of stop smoking events being held all over the UK. Add together the quit attempts for January and March, and we should see around 15% of smokers – over 1.5million people – making a ‘serious’ attempt to stop smoking.

Research by Professor Robert West et al, published in the BMJ in 2010, looked at the cost-effectiveness of No Smoking Day as a method of encouraging smokers to quit. The research used data collected since 2006 from the ‘Smoking Toolkit Study’ – a monthly survey of smoking behaviour in England. It shows clear ‘peaks’ in quit attempts each New Year, and again each March as No Smoking Day hits the headlines as it has done every March since 1984. The next No Smoking Day falls on Wednesday 9th March 2011.