title: Quitting Smoking Among Adults - United States, 2000-2015.
abstract: Quitting cigarette smoking benefits smokers at any age (1). Individual, group, and telephone counseling and seven Food and Drug Administration-approved medications increase quit rates (1-3). To assess progress toward the Healthy People 2020 objectives of increasing the proportion of U.S. adults who attempt to quit smoking cigarettes to ≥80.0% (TU-4.1), and increasing recent smoking cessation success to ≥8.0% (TU-5.1),* CDC assessed national estimates of cessation behaviors among adults aged ≥18 years using data from the 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS). During 2015, 68.0% of adult smokers wanted to stop smoking, 55.4% made a past-year quit attempt, 7.4% recently quit smoking, 57.2% had been advised by a health professional to quit, and 31.2% used cessation counseling and/or medication when trying to quit. During 2000-2015, increases occurred in the proportion of smokers who reported a past-year quit attempt, recently quit smoking, were advised to quit by a health professional, and used cessation counseling and/or medication (p<0.05). Throughout this period, fewer than one third of persons used evidence-based cessation methods when trying to quit smoking. As of 2015, 59.1% of adults who had ever smoked had quit. To further increase cessation, health care providers can consistently identify smokers, advise them to quit, and offer them cessation treatments (2-4). In addition, health insurers can increase cessation by covering and promoting evidence-based cessation treatments and removing barriers to treatment access (2,4-6).
authors.affiliation: Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Babb
authors.affiliation: Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Malarcher
authors.affiliation: Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schauer
authors.affiliation: Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.
authors.forename: Kat
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Asman
authors.affiliation: Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC.
authors.forename: Ahmed
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jamal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000074606:Smoking Prevention; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult