Many Smokers Want to Quit, but Few Succeed

More than two-thirds of smokers say they'd like to quit, but only a small percentage actually do so, survey data showed.

The CDC is reporting that more than half of adult smokers have made at least one attempt in the previous year, but the majority of the would-be quitters didn't use medication or counseling to help them.

And the overall prevalence of recent quitting was just 6.2%, with marked differences by both education and race/ethnicity, the agency reported in the Nov. 11 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Overall, the report showed that 68.8% of smokers want to kick the habit, 52.4% reported making an attempt to stop in the year before they were questioned, and only 31.7% reported using counseling and/or medication to help them butt out.

The findings come from analysis of the National Health Interview Surveys from 2001 through 2010, and are being released a week ahead of the annual Great American Smokeout on Nov. 17, according to Tim McAfee, MD, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.

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