title: The use of financial incentives in promoting smoking cessation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States and world. Despite the availability of numerous therapies for smoking cessation, additional efficacious interventions are greatly needed. We provide a narrative review of published studies evaluating financial incentives for smoking cessation and discuss the parameters important for ensuring the efficacy of incentive interventions for smoking cessation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Published studies that evaluated the impact of incentives to promote smoking cessation and included an appropriate control or comparison condition were identified and reviewed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Incentives are efficacious for promoting smoking abstinence across the general population of smokers as well as substance abusers, adolescents, patients with pulmonary disease, patients with serious mental illness and other challenging subgroups. To develop and implement an effective incentive treatment for smoking, special attention should be paid to biochemical verification of smoking status, incentive magnitude and the schedule of incentive delivery.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Consistent with the extensive literature showing that incentives are effective in reducing illicit drug use, a large body of evidence supports their effectiveness in reducing smoking. Continued efforts are warranted to further develop and disseminate incentive-based treatments for smoking cessation across clinical settings and populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, University Health Center Campus, 1 S. Prospect St, Burlington, VT 05401, USA. stacey.sigmon@uvm.edu
authors.forename: Stacey C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Sigmon
authors.forename: Mollie E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Patrick
mesh_terms: D005378:Financial Support; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D012201:Reward; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States