The Health Promotion Agency’s (HPA’s) Youth Insights Survey (YIS) monitors Year 10 students’ behaviours, attitudes and knowledge on a range of tobacco-related topics, including about their desires and attempts to stop smoking, and has collected this data since 2006. This fact sheet focuses on young people’s desires and attempts to stop smoking between 2006 and 2014.
Methodology
Participants in the 2014 YIS were asked about whether they wanted to stop smoking, whether they had tried to quit in the past year (12 months), and whether they were smoking at the time of the survey. Responses were examined by ethnicity, gender and school decile status. See the ‘About the Youth Insights Survey’ section for more detail and the relevant comparison groups.
The analyses were restricted to different sub-groups of respondents, depending on the particular population of interest. Analysis on desire to stop smoking was restricted to current smokers (those who smoked at least monthly, n = 218). Analysis on past year quit attempts was restricted to those who had smoked in the past year (n = 332). Analysis to determine successful quit attempts was restricted to those who had made a quit attempt in the past year (n = 214).
Further analyses were undertaken to determine changes over time as these questions were also asked in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012.
Key Results
• Nearly half of young people who currently smoke want to stop smoking now.
• Six in ten of those young people who had smoked in the past year had tried to stop smoking during that time.
• One-fifth of those who had tried to stop smoking in the past year no longer smoked at the time of the survey.
• There has been little change in the rates of young people desiring, attempting, or successfully stopping smoking since 2006.