The Short-Term and Long-Term Associations Between Receiving Tobacco Discounts or Coupons and Smoking Cessation Among U.S. Adult Cigarette Smokers With Intention to Quit

Abstract

Introduction: To examine the associations between baseline receipt of cigarette and non-cigarette tobacco discounts or coupons and smoking cessation at follow-up among US adult cigarette smokers with the intention to quit at baseline.

Aims and methods: Data were from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study wave 3 (October 2015-October 2016), wave 4 (December 2016-January 2018), and wave 5 (December 2018-November 2019) surveys. Two separate sets of analyses were conducted using wave 3-4 data (N = 3707) and wave 4-5 data (N = 6251). Specifically, wave 4 was used as the 1-year follow-up of wave 3 to examine the short-term association, and wave 5 was used as the 2-year follow-up of wave 4 to examine the longer-term association. Study population were current established cigarette smokers with the intention to quit (within 1 year for wave 3-4 data) at baseline. Exposure was self-reported past 12-month receipt of discounts or coupons for cigarettes and non-cigarette tobacco products at baseline, and outcome was self-reported completely quitting cigarette smoking at follow-up. Baseline single-wave weights were applied, and multivariate logistic regressions were used to estimate the adjusted associations.

Results: Participants who received cigarette discounts or coupons at baseline were less likely to quit completely for both 1-year follow-up (aOR = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.48 to 0.90) and 2-year follow-up (aOR = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.61 to 0.90). Baseline receipt of discounts or coupons for non-cigarette tobacco products were not consistently associated with cigarette smoking cessation at follow-up.

Conclusions: Receipt of cigarette discounts or coupons was associated with a reduced likelihood of successful quitting among cigarette smokers with intention to quit. Policies restricting cigarette coupons may help them quit completely.

Implications: This study found that among baseline current established cigarette smokers with intention to quit in the United States, baseline receipt of cigarette discounts or coupons was negatively associated with cigarette smoking cessation for both 1-year follow-up and 2-year follow-up. Baseline receipt of discounts or coupons for e-cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products were not consistently significantly associated with cigarette smoking cessation at follow-up. Our study results indicated that policies restricting cigarette coupons may help increase the likelihood of successful smoking cessation for smokers with intention to quit.