


Existing treatments, however, are currently underutilized by smokers, with only 32% of current smokers having used counseling and/or medication when they tried to quit smoking. Proven treatment strategies exist to support smoking cessation, increasing quit success rates from 5% in persons trying to quit smoking without support, to 16% with behavioral support, and 24% with combined behavioral and pharmacological support. Recent estimates suggest that 69% of all smokers want to quit 52% made a quit attempt in the past year, but only 6% successfully quit. One promising emerging treatment option for providing such support is the use of smartphone apps. New patterns of smoking coupled with persisting disparities call for renewed efforts to provide easily accessible and engaging tobacco cessation support. This rate is substantially higher among American Indians and Alaska Natives (31.8%), persons with no more than a high school diploma/General Education Diploma (40.6%), persons living below the poverty level (25.3%), lesbian, gay, or bisexual adults (20.5%), and adults with serious psychological distress (35.8%).

In the general population, the prevalence of smoking is 15.5%. For smoking in general, substantial disparities continue to exist. It is disproportionally represented in ethnic minority groups and increasingly prevalent in adults with a mental health or substance use problem. Nondaily smoking poses substantial health risks. Currently, 24.3% of all adult smokers are nondaily smokers, which constitutes a 27% increase in prevalence in the last decade. Although the prevalence of smoking has steadily declined over a number of years, an increasingly prevalent pattern of smoking is nondaily smoking. Cigarette smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, accounting for more than 480,000 deaths every year.
