Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology
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Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev. · Jun 1998
Can strategies used by statewide tobacco control programs help smokers make progress in quitting?
Many states have recently adopted programs to encourage smokers to quit. Here, we seek evidence that strategies generally used by these programs have the potential to influence smoking cessation. In California, 1,736 smokers from a population-based telephone survey were interviewed in 1990 and 1992. ⋯ Smokers who reported having some form of cessation assistance showed 3.0 times more progress. The more program-related factors were reported, the higher the rate of progress was: 13.1% for those reporting no factors, 23.4% for one factor, and 40.6% for two or more. These results suggest but do not prove that strategies promoted by statewide tobacco control programs can potentially be effective and that these efforts should be continued and expanded.