title: Financial incentives to promote smoking cessation: evidence from 11 quit and win contests.
abstract: In an effort footline to motivate smokers across New York State to stop smoking, tobacco control programs across the state held 'Quit and Win' incentive-based stop-smoking contests. These contests encouraged smokers to make a quit attempt by offering a chance to win cash prize (usually 1,000 dollars) for successfully stopping smoking for at least 1 month. Between 2001 and 2004, 11 different Quit and Win Contests involving 5,504 adult smokers were sponsored in different communities across New York State. Follow-up surveys were conducted 4 to 6 months after each contest ended to evaluate participants' success in quitting smoking. Expenditures for promoting contests varied from a high of 91,441 dollars to a low of 4,345 dollars, with a median of 25,928 dollars. An average of 0.55 percent of smokers was recruited to join contests across the 11 communities. Among smokers who enrolled in a contest, 9 out of 10 reported making a quit attempt, and between 53 percent and 72 percent reported quitting for the full month of the contest. At 4 to 6 months follow-up, self-reported quit rates (7-day point prevalence) among contestants ranged from 22 percent to 49 percent, with an average of 31 percent. Based on a statewide population survey, 8 of the 11 programs showed quit rates that were significantly higher (P < .001 by Wilcoxon rank-sum test) than the estimated quit rate of 21 percent seen among smokers making a quit attempt in the past year. This study shows that for a relatively modest investment of resources, thousands of smokers can be recruited to make a serious quit attempt, with many remaining smoke-free months later.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Behavior, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York 14263, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fix
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Celestino
authors.forename: Shannon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carlin-Menter
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hyland
authors.forename: K Michael
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Cummings
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D009518:New York; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*