Felix Naughton is Professor of Health Psychology at the University of East Anglia (UEA), with honorary positions at the Universities of Nottingham and Cambridge. He is co-lead of the UEA Addictions Research Group and a registered health psychologist. He has a key research interest in the development and evaluation of digital interventions to promote and support health behaviour change, particularly innovative technology-mediated approaches, such as Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions. He currently leads a research programme focused on mobile phone-based smoking cessation interventions. Felix has served on multiple national policy and practice committees, including as a topic expert on behaviour change related NICE (UK) advisory committees.

Changing smoking behaviour with digital tools: transferable insights and a look ahead

Smoking continues to be the greatest modifiable contributor to the burden of disease in the UK. The most commonly used form of behavioural (i.e., non-pharmacological) support in the UK for stopping smoking are digital interventions, such as apps or websites. These interventions include little or no interpersonal elements. Delivering behavioural support digitally has several advantages over non-digital or interpersonal approaches. These advantages include the availability of support 24/7, their potential for providing highly tailored support and support that is triggered by and adapted to real time events and context. However, there remains many challenges with their use that threaten to limit their impact, such as reaching the target population, promoting effective user engagement, engendering accountability and addressing withdrawal and cravings. The full potential of digital tools has yet to be realised. 

In this talk, I will draw on collaborative research where we have been learning how we might advance the potential of digital support for smoking cessation while addressing the challenges. This will include text message and app-based interventions, for general populations of people who smoke as well as those who are pregnant. Then, drawing on recent and ongoing work, I will look ahead to the implications of technological advances in sensing, artificial intelligence and hardware for digital smoking cessation support. Alongside, I will draw out key insights that are transferable to other areas of behaviour change and behavioural medicine.