Retrospective reports of former smokers: Receiving doctor's advice to quit smoking and using behavioral interventions for smoking cessation in the United States

The study investigated the over-time changes and racial/ethnic disparities in the quality of health care services for cigarette smoking cessation in the U.S. from 2007 to 2015. The primary measures included receiving a doctor's advice to quit smoking in the year before smoking cessation and using behavioral interventions for smoking cessation (telephone helplines and web-based interventions) while trying to quit smoking. The study was conducted from January to July 2018. We used merged data from the 2010–11 and 2014–15 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. The sample sizes were 7011 and 12,025, respectively, for the analyses corresponding to two primary measures. The rate of receiving a doctor's advice to quit increased significantly from 66% (SE = 2%) in 2007 to 73% (SE = 4%) in 2015. The rate of usage of telephone helplines or web-based interventions for smoking cessation increased only from 3% (SE = 1%) in 2007 to 5% (SE = 1%) in 2015. These positive trends remained even after adjusting for several important factors. For both measures, the rates were consistently lower among Hispanic smokers than Non-Hispanic Black/African American and White smokers. Despite the availability of states' behavioral interventions for cessation of tobacco use, utilization of these interventions remains very low, indicating that smokers may not be aware of these free resources, may have misconceptions about these interventions being evidence-based, or there are barriers for using these interventions.