May 22, 2008 7:38 am US/Central
Study: Quitting Smoking Easier When Done In Group
LOS ANGELES (AP) ―
Researchers say a smoker is more likely to quit if that person has a spouse, family member, friend, or co-worker who have quit or are quitting at the same time.
A Harvard Medical School sociologist and a University of California-San Diego colleague poured over the Framingham Heart Study, a 30-year tracking of the health of more than 12,000 residents of the Boston suburb.
By checking the social lives of those study participants, the research team found that two thirds of the participants were less likely to smoke if a spouse stopped smoking. The odds are nearly as high if a friend, co-worker or brother or sister of the study member was quitting.
The researchers, in their report published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, also found that whole groups became nonsmokers over time. And the people who still smoked were pushed to the fringe of their social circles.
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