Quitting smoking "contagious"
30 May 2008
Getting together with mates in the pub or making a pact with your partner makes a real difference to your chance of succeeding 
Martin Dockrell, Policy and Campaigns Manager, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
| Key findings from the study |
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The chance that a person in the study smoked fell by:
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Smoking may be addictive, but quitting is contagious, according to a new study investigating patterns in smoking behaviour among social networks.
People tend to quit smoking in droves, the study found, with whole clusters of interconnected smokers giving up at the same time, rather than stopping smoking alone. Furthermore, those people who remained smokers became increasingly pushed to the fringes of their social network.
The study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, evaluated smoking behaviour and social ties in more than 12,000 people, over a period of 32 years.
First-degree contacts (those people directly connected to an individual, such as a spouse or friend) had the greatest influence on a person's likelihood of quitting smoking. This link was observed regardless of how far apart the contacts lived. The strongest connection was with a husband or wife, with a person 67 percent less likely to smoke if their spouse quit smoking.
However, even second and third degree contacts (people who an individual may not even know, but who they are linked to indirectly through other contacts) - were found to influence a person's likelihood of quitting. As the authors of the study explain, this effect seems to be due to a "change in the zeitgeist" or a cultural shift in the social network.
"These are important findings locally and internationally," Martin Dockrell, Policy and Campaigns Manager at ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) told the Bupa health information team.
"First they illustrate how much people can do themselves - getting together with mates in the pub or making a pact with your partner makes a real difference to your chance of succeeding. In countries with limited health resources, social networks offer a cost-effective approach to reducing smoking prevalence."
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