The Evolution of Age-Specific Smoking Cessation Rates in the United States From 2009 to 2018

OBJECTIVE: Tracking the US smoking cessation rate over time is of great interest to tobacco control researchers and policymakers since smoking cessation behaviors have a major effect on the public’s health. A couple of recent studies have employed dynamic models to estimate the US cessation rate through observed smoking prevalence. However, none of those studies has provided recent annual estimates of the cessation rate by age group. METHODS: We employed a Kalman filter approach to investigate the annual evolution of age-group-specific cessation rates, unknown parameters of a mathematical model of smoking prevalence, during the 2009–2018 period using data from the National Health Interview Survey. We focused on cessation rates in the 24–44, 45–64 and 65 + age groups. RESULTS: The findings show that cessation rates follow a consistent u-shaped curve over time with respect to age (i.e., higher among the 25–44 and 65 + age groups, and lower among 45–64-year-olds). Over the course of the study, the cessation rates in the 25–44 and 65 + age groups remained nearly unchanged around 4.5% and 5.6%, respectively. However, the rate in the 45–64 age group exhibited a substantial increase of 70%, from 2.5% in 2009 to 4.2% in 2017. The estimated cessation rates in all three age groups tended to converge to the weighted average cessation rate over time. CONCLUSIONS: The Kalman filter approach offers a real-time estimation of cessation rates that would be helpful for monitoring smoking cessation behavior, of interest in general but also for tobacco control policymakers.