Covid-19: Working from home during pandemic "may have stopped people quitting smoking"

Working from home during the pandemic may have stopped people quitting smoking, researchers have suggested.

The rate of decline in smoking rates across England appears to have “stagnated”, with more young people taking up smoking during the pandemic and a slower decline in the middle classes quitting than those who were less affluent. Experts led by University College London (UCL) analysed data from 2020 to 2022 to see what impact the Covid-19 pandemic had on smoking rates.

The study found that, before the pandemic, smoking prevalence fell by 5.2 per cent per year but this rate of decline slowed to just 0.3 per cent per year during the pandemic.

Researchers suggested that people who are less affluent may have felt more urgency to quit during the pandemic, while those who were wealthier and had professional or managerial roles may have carried on smoking due to stress.

They said: “Possible explanations for these differences include those from less advantaged social grades being more likely to experience financial impacts of the pandemic (eg due to job loss or reduced earnings) which make (taking up or continuing) smoking less affordable, or work in frontline jobs that increase exposure to Covid-19 and might make quitting smoking higher priority. In addition, manual jobs were less disrupted through the pandemic, whereas many non-manual jobs switched to home working, leading to loneliness and poorer mental health, which may have made people in more advantaged social grades less inclined to try to stop smoking.”

The team said younger adults have also experienced higher levels of stress, upheaval, and social isolation during the pandemic “which might have contributed to increased smoking prevalence in this group”.

The study warned that the government needs to “reignite progress in reducing smoking among the more advantaged social grades and identify ways to accelerate the decline among less advantaged groups” if it is to get near its target of making England smoke-free by 2030.

Lead author Dr Sarah Jackson, from UCL, said: “Smoking prevalence has been falling among adults in England at a steady rate for more than 20 years. Our data show that this decline has stalled, with an increase in quitting potentially having been offset by a rise in people taking up smoking or an increase in late relapse.

“These findings make bold policy action more urgent. The government was already not on track to meet its target for England to be smoke-free by 2030. This study shows we are even further off track than we thought.”