Project Title: Leveraging Process Models of Self-Regulation to Understand Self-Quitting in Scotland
Description: Despite ambitious targets to quarter smoking rates by 2034, the prevalence of smoking in Scotland has plateaued. Scientific understanding and related policy recommendations are further complicated by findings that most individuals who quit smoking long-term do so unassisted. Little is currently known about these self-quitters, often because they achieve cessation outside of any formal program.
The project will apply a self-regulation framework to
- provide evidence-based insights into unassisted cessation, and,
- test if the psychological mechanisms underlying unassisted cessation predict and encourage cessation in new-quitters.
The project will take a mixed-method approach to investigate health behaviours in community members related to smoking cessation.
