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Due to the loss of purchasing power, consumers are seeking to save money by any means possible, which could ultimately lead to a reduction in smoking. In England, the price of tobacco is in any case slowly but surely pushing more and more smokers to throw away their last cigarette butt. One in four adults now consider these expenses a determining factor in ending this addiction once and for all, according to a new study.
Long criticized in many countries, particularly in Europe, could the continued rise in tobacco prices finally prove to be a deterrent? It would seem, if only in relation to the drop in purchasing power suffered by consumers, as revealed by a new study carried out by British researchers.
Health and wallet health, two reasons to quit smoking
These examined the main reasons given by a sample of English adults for quitting smoking over several periods, between March 2018 and May 2023, highlighting certain distinctions based on age, gender, socio-economic status, or even parental status. All based on the monthly Smoking Toolkit survey, conducted among a sample of around 1,700 adults in England, smokers or former smokers.
“Health concerns are usually the primary motivation for people trying to quit smoking, with social and financial concerns, as well as advice from a healthcare professional, also being commonly cited reasons“, the researchers immediately emphasize in a press release.
And to specify: “But since 2020, England has experienced a period of significant societal instability, driven mainly by the Covid-19 pandemic, which may have triggered changes in the reasons smokers give for quitting smoking“.
The pandemic, a trigger
Published in the journal BMJ Public Health, the results of the study confirm this hypothesis. Until the start of 2020, half of attempts to quit smoking were motivated by health concerns, whether current health problems (20%) or potential future problems (34% ), while 20% of quit attempts were motivated by social factors and just as many by the cost of tobacco. But the year 2020, marked by the outbreak of Covid-19, seems to have been a turning point in terms of determining factors for stopping smoking.
While the proportion of quit attempts linked to health concerns remained stable over the period studied, those motivated by cost increased significantly, from around 19% in March 2018 to almost 25.5% in May. 2023.”[Les] economic pressures [en lien avec la pandémie] likely contributed to the increase in cost-motivated quit attempts at this time. But while the pandemic’s acute health risks – and, consequently, attempts to quit smoking motivated by health or social concerns – have diminished over time, its economic repercussions have been compounded by a crisis in the cost of the life“, suggest the authors of this work.
Don’t let your money go up in smoke again!
Despite certain limitations of the study, notably the fact that it is based on self-reported data, the scientists conclude: “These findings have implications for smoking cessation interventions and clinical practice. They indicate that cost is an increasingly important factor that motivates people to try to quit smoking. Communicating the potential savings that people can make by quitting smoking (even if they switch to other nicotine products) could therefore be an effective way of motivating quit attempts.“.