Abstract

Smoking cessation is one of the primary targets of tobacco control. We estimated time trends in smoking cessation in the general European population, in order to better inform future public health strategies.

The ALEC study (EU H2020 grant #633212) includes multicentre studies (ECRHS, GA2LEN, RHINE, GEIRD) that collected data on smoking history of 54,145 ex and current smokers surveyed between 1990 and 2014. Smoking cessation rates were estimated using multilevel negative binomial regression models, using log(person-years at risk) as an offset, centre/survey as a random-intercept, and age as a fixed effect. Cubic splines were adopted to model time trends in smoking cessation from 1980 to 2010 in younger (16-35yrs) and older (36-55) males and females from North, East, South and West Europe.

Nearly half of the smokers quit during the observation period (843,883 person-years). The crude rates of smoking cessation were 24.1 and 29.3 per 1000/year among younger and older adults, respectively. The rates were highest in North Europe compared to the rest of Europe. In the last decade, the rates increased in younger adults, especially females, from all the EU regions and in older adults from North Europe, while smoking cessation rates did not increase in older adults from the other EU regions.

Our results warn against complacency in tobacco control and are calling for a stronger smoking cessation action targeting both young and older smokers.

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Salva