Smoking is one of the root causes of chronic and fatal diseases and even death. It is already widely known how harmful smoking is to overall wellbeing. Quitting smoking is challenging because of how addicting it can be. This addiction makes people continue to smoke, regardless of how alarming the consequences are.
A study published in Cochrane Review, however, shed light on an intervention that has shown promise in helping people quit smoking: financial incentives.
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Effect more pronounced in pregnant women
The study conducted by the University of East Anglia revealed that financial incentives, be it in the form of cash, vouchers, or deposits, help in quitting smoking. This is even more promising for pregnant women who smoke. They ceased smoking, and not just temporarily, after receiving financial rewards.
Not just pregnant women, this was tested across various age groups. It’s just that pregnant women had the highest likelihood of quitting smoking out of all the others. These pregnant women who received cash were two times more likely to quit smoking than those who did not. Smoking is also one of the reasons for major pregnancy complications like stillbirth and miscarriage, which could add to the importance of this financial reward. Furthermore, financial rewards also prevent these pregnant women from relapsing into smoking after giving birth, showing long-term behaviour change.
Understanding the ‘cash’ motivation
Cash is a big motivation that can assist people overcome the forces of addiction.
Co-author Jamie Hartmann-Boyce said, “There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that this intervention is acting on the psychological reward systems in the brain, which we know are heavily involved with nicotine addiction.”
As the study author pointed out, financial rewards speak to the human mind like a form of reward. This triggers the brain’s reward system. The author connected this phenomenon to what nicotine does to the human brain—it makes people feel good, forming an addiction. So, when people try to stop smoking, they experience withdrawal symptoms and miss that “feel-good” effect. In a way, cash helps replace nicotine’s rewarding effect. Financial rewards are associated with materialistic goods, which can motivate people to quit smoking.
This is even more relevant for pregnant women. They are aware of the atrocious side effects of smoking, but this cash reward may be the final push they need.
Jamie Hartmann-Boyce said, “So, it’s not that these people could have quit anyway and then were paid and decided to do so. A lot of people in these studies have tried to quit many times, they really want to quit and weren’t able to do so, and this (cash reward) helped them.”
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice.
