Completed Public Health & Healthcare NIHR-supported project Lungs & Breathing

Are smokers having lung health checks ready to quit?

Funder NIHR (part of DHSC)
Recipient organisation NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre
NIHR support Recorded as supported by this research centre
Period Mar 2025 — Jun 2025

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Lung health checks for smokers aged 55 to 74 create a brief window to talk about quitting, but most people arriving for a scan have not yet decided to stop. The problem is straightforward: opportunistic settings like these reach people who haven’t sought out help to quit, so standard stop-smoking programmes—designed for those already motivated—often fall flat. This project aims to map how a smoker’s “readiness to quit” shifts across the entire lung check process, from the invitation letter through to receiving results. Understanding that trajectory is the missing piece. If the research succeeds, it will directly inform a new programme tailored for people who are still ambivalent about quitting. That programme could then be paired with traditional cessation support—nicotine replacement, counselling—once a smoker is ready. The practical impact would be a more effective, staged approach embedded within a national screening programme, potentially helping thousands more people quit each year without requiring them to seek help on their own.

View original technical description
The NHS is offering lung health checks to people aged 55 to 74 who smoke or have smoked, to look for signs of lung cancer. This is a good opportunity to encourage smokers to quit, as they will already be thinking about their lung health. ‘Opportunistic settings’ like lung health checks, where smokers can be presented with information about quitting even though they haven’t sought it out, can be a good place to encourage people to quit. Using this type of setting to deliver health promotion information can increase the number and diversity of people reached. However, a problem with encouraging people to quit smoking in opportunistic settings is that they haven’t already decided to quit. Any programme designed to be delivered in this type of setting must take this into account. Project aims We plan to develop a programme encouraging people to stop smoking, to be delivered in opportunistic settings like lung health checks. The aim of this project is to explore ‘readiness to quit’ in smokers attending lung health checks. We will explore how readiness to quit may be influenced by the lung screening process, including how it might change at various steps in this process (from invitation to receipt of results). This will help us understand how and when to support smokers to quit at lung health checks. What we hope to achieve The results of this study will help us understand if additional support needs to be provided in opportunistic settings to encourage people to stop smoking. In particular, the study will help design a programme encouraging readiness to quit, that can then be supplemented by more traditional smoking cessation support.

Researchers

Angela Attwood (Principal Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Providing information about e-cigarettes at lung health checks
A randomised trial to increase the uptake of smoking cessation services using personal targeted risk information and taster sessions
Smoking: new approaches to cessation service delivery, prevention of passive smoke exposure in children, and healthcare cost estimation
How do smoking cessation medicines compare with respect to their neuropsychiatric safety: a systematic review, network meta-analysis and cost effectiveness analysis.
Brief opportunistic Smoking cessation Advice for financially Vulnerable Individuals accessiNG financial Support (SAVINGS): a randomised controlled trial

Original classification

Mental Health

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