Abstract
Background
In October 2016, Santé publique France, the National Public Health Agency, launched a social marketing campaign aiming at triggering quit attempts among smokers: “Mois sans tabac”, inspired by the English ’Stoptober’. This campaign sets smokers the objective of being smokefree for one month, in November. It combines a national mass-media communication with provision of cessation help services (quitline, website, mobile application, self-help kit) and local actions, in connection with the health regional agencies. The study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of this intervention.
Methods
The effectiveness evaluation is based on a specific analysis of the 2017 Health Barometer, a random survey representative of the population living in metropolitan France conducted between January and July 2017 on a sample of 25,319 individuals aged 18-75 years-old. The participation rate was 48.5%. Multivariate logistic regressions allowed testing the association between recall of the campaign and quit attempts (QA) in the last quarter of 2016, adjusted for sociodemographic confounders (N = 6,341). Respondents who attempted to quit were contacted at one-year for a follow-up.
Results
Nearly one in six daily smokers (15.9% [14.9-17.1]) reported making a 24-hour QA in the last quarter of 2016, and 18.4% [15.5-21.3] of them reported that it was related to Mois sans tabac, which represents approximately 380,000 QA [310,000-440,000] related to the operation. Among smokers who made a QA, 31% have been abstinent for at least 30 days [27%-34%] and 18% [15%-21%] reported they did not smoke anymore in 2017. Recall of Mois sans tabac was associated with QA in the last quarter of 2016 (aOR=1.3 [1.1-1.6], p < 0.01) and with cessation in 2017 (aOR=2.4 [1.4-4.2], p < 0.01), and odds-ratios increased with frequency of exposure and number of sources of information.
Conclusions
These results show that the first edition of Mois sans tabac was successful in triggering quit attempts among smokers.
Key messages
Mass-media campaigns for smoking cessation, combined with provision of help services and local actions, can be effective for triggering quit attempts. Importing foreign social marketing programs can be effective.
Effectiveness of Mois sans tabac 2016, a French social marketing campaign against smoking
