Parkland Smoking Cessation Clinic participates in innovative study
Monetary incentives improve outcomes
Anyone who has ever tried to quit smoking knows that you can use all the help you can get. And, as it turns out, a little spending money doesn’t hurt either.
A recent study conducted with patients from the Smoking Cessation Clinic at Parkland Health & Hospital System found that offering small financial incentives to socioeconomically disadvantaged smokers significantly improved quit rates. The study, published online this month in the American Journal of Public Health, found that patients who received the incentives had a smoking abstinence rate of 49 percent after four weeks, compared to 25 percent for those who did not receive the incentives. After 12 weeks, the rates were 33 percent compared to 14 percent.
Although smoking rates have declined to 18 percent among adults in the U.S., smoking prevalence is nearly 30 percent among those living in poverty. “Smoking has become increasingly concentrated among individuals of lower income and education. Effective interventions are needed to improve smoking cessation rates in this vulnerable population,” said Darla Kendzor, PhD, Assistant Professor and lead investigator on the study at The University of Texas School of Public Health Dallas Regional Campus.
“Smoking continues to be the number one cause of disease and preventable death in this country, and the financial impact it has on our country’s health care costs is staggering,” said David Balis, MD, Medical Director of Parkland’s Smoking Cessation Clinic and one of the study researchers. “Deciding to quit smoking is the most beneficial step anyone can take to improve their health.”
Each year more than 480,000 deaths in the U.S. are attributed to smoking-related causes, and at least 80 percent of lung cancers are due to smoking. Smoking cessation is the focus each November during Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and the annual Great American SmokeOut sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
Researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center and The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center collaborated on the two-year study at Parkland, which focused primarily on lower-income smokers. Funding for the study came from The University of Texas School of Public Health and the American Cancer Society.
“Safety net hospitals, such as Parkland, provide care to many low-income, uninsured and vulnerable populations,” Dr. Balis said. “The reasons many in these populations find it difficult to quit smoking are many, including higher levels of stress, less access to health care and less availability of smoking cessation options.”
Dr. Kendzor said researchers “wanted to investigate how small and potentially cost-effective financial incentives might help safety net hospital patients quit smoking.”
At the Parkland Smoking Cessation Clinic, patients receive behavioral group counseling, meet with health care professionals individually and can receive medication to help them stop. Those who qualified for the study received these services, but half of the eligible group also received gift cards each week if they remained abstinent. The gift cards started at $20, and increased by $5 each week, up to a total of $150 for those who were continuously abstinent. Smoking abstinence was confirmed at each visit by measuring carbon monoxide levels in the breath.
The average amount patients received was less than $64. The researchers noted that Parkland’s Smoking Cessation Clinic sees about 200 patients a year. The cost of incentives for all new patients would amount to about $12,800 a year, compared with the average cost of $70,000 for the initial year of lung cancer treatment for a single case.
For more information about the Parkland Smoking Cessation Clinic call 214.590.5603.
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