UK
The most recent data from the Smoking Toolkit Study, a periodic study of smoking cessation trends in England, revealed that the success rate for smokers who tried to quit in the past year had dramatically increased from 14% in 2011 to 23% in 2016.
The quit rate remained steady from 2007 to 2011, then rose steadily from 2011 to 2015 and then increased dramatically over the past year.
One likely reason for this spectacular increase in smoking cessation rates is that a shift in methods used for quitting may be propelling this change. Starting in 2011 and coinciding precisely with the increased quit rate was a dramatic shift away from the use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in quit attempts and towards the use of e-cigarettes.
Prior to 2011, virtually no smokers in the UK were using e-cigarettes to try to quit smoking, while approximately 30% were using NRT. By late last year, only about 10% of smokers were using NRT in quit attempts compared to about 40% using electronic cigarettes.
In addition, the percentage of smokers who quit in the past year increased dramatically from only 4.6% in 2011 to 7.2% in 2014 and to 7.5% so far in 2016. Since the overall percentage of smokers making quit attempts did not change appreciably between 2011 and 2016, it appears that it is the dramatic rise in e-cigarette use that has fueled the increased rates of smoking cessation in the UK during the past five years.