Clinicians' Advice to Quit Smoking

On This Page:

Clinicians’ advice to quit smoking can, by itself, increase quit attempts and quit success and can have even greater impact if coupled with cessation counseling and/or medication. In addition, even brief clinical interventions have been shown to be cost effective for increasing the motivation of people who smoke to quit.

Clinical guidelines recommend clinicians utilize the “5 A’s” (ask, advise, assess, assist, and arrange) when screening for tobacco use and providing cessation interventions. For patients ready to quit, clinicians can provide cessation assistance and support, including medication, counseling, referral to treatment extenders, and follow-up. For patients who are not yet ready to quit, clinicians can instead provide a brief intervention designed to promote the motivation to quit. A wide variety of clinicians, including dentists, physicians, nurses, and other health professionals such as pharmacists, can effectively implement brief strategies to increase future quit attempts.
 

The percentage of adults who smoke (aged 18 years and older) and have seen a physician in the past 12 months who report that the physician advised them to quit smoking.

The Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey Harmonized Data, National Cancer Institute, 1992–2019.

  • Increase to 58.1 percent the proportion of adults who smoke that receive advice to quit from a health professional.

This Healthy People 2030 (HP2030) goal is focused on smoking cessation advice from any health professional, including a physician, dentist, or other health professional. Data for this HP2030 goal are from the National Health Interview Survey. In contrast, the data presented in the Cancer Trends Progress Report only use reports of smoking cessation advice from a physician. Data for this report are from the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Therefore, the data presented in this report cannot be directly compared to the HP2030 objective.

Healthy People 2030 is a set of goals set forth by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Note: Goals are indicated as blue line on Detailed Trend Graphs.

Quitting Resources
1992-2019
2014-2019
Rising
Rising
Smoking Cessation