Contingency management for smoking cessation: where do we go from here?

Each year, smoking-related illnesses are among the leading causes of preventable death in the U.S. and in many other countries. Although recently there have been substantial developments in pharmaceutical and behavioral smoking cessation treatments, these interventions do not work for all individuals, necessitating development of a wider array of treatments. Despite demonstrated efficacy in several studies, contingency management (CM) is a behavioral intervention that is not widely used as a smoking cessation treatment. This review surveys the current research literature on the efficacy of CM for smoking reduction, and identifies some of the most prominent barriers to wider implementation of CM as a stop-smoking treatment. Suggestions are made for future research to design behavioral smoking cessation programs that may be applied as a treatment for smokers in the community.