Leonie Brose Lecturer in Addictions, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
Abstract
Background
Smoking prevalence and quitting is linked to socio-economic status. Our objective was to assess the association of neighbourhood deprivation and stop smoking service clients’ quit attempts.
Methods
We linked 555,744 treatment episodes supported by English Stop Smoking Services in 2009-2012 to the Index of Multiple Deprivation for the clients’ immediate neighbourhood. We compared client demographics and support characteristics across levels of deprivation and evaluated the association of deprivation with follow-up and success while taking client and support characteristics into account.
Results
With increasing deprivation, clients were younger, more likely to be female, not in employment/paying prescription charges and more dependent, all factors that can reduce quit success. While use of Champix decreased with deprivation, use of combination NRT and support in specialist clinics increased. Loss to follow-up increased and success rates decreased with deprivation and both remained true even when adjusting for all other characteristics.
Conclusion
Smokers from more deprived neighbourhoods face a number of additional obstacles when trying to quit. They are also less likely to be followed up and less likely to quit successfully. Reasons for the difficulties with follow-up and ways to improve it need to be examined.
Source of funding: Leonie's post is funded by the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies (UKCTAS), her post until July 2013 was funded by the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT)
