Study: Social Connections on Cessation Website Help Smokers Quit

Active involvement in an online community of people fighting nicotine addiction seems to result in lower rates of smoking, according to a new study.

MeYouHealth reported May 19 that a study of more than 7,500 members of the online smoking-cessation site QuitNet found that individuals with the most connections to other members were less likely to smoke. Researcher Nathan Cobb, M.D., and colleagues found that active users of the site were mostly women in their 40s, and many had been involved in QuitNet for a year or longer.

Cobb, of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies, said that the study was among the first to look at a network-based intervention that had a long-term track record of stability, rather than one created specifically by researchers for study purposes.

The study was published online in the American Journal of Public Health.