The finish line is in sight for smokers who have quit this ‘Stoptober’ with Monday 28th October marking the official end of this year’s challenge. Research shows that people who manage to stop smoking for 28 days are five times more likely to quit for good, and since its launch 12 years ago 2.5 million smokers have taken the Stoptober challenge.
Activity across Cheshire and Merseyside got off to a great start, with a press release and coverage across several outlets including The Guide and Birkenhead News. In addition, many areas developed their own campaigns, gaining more coverage across the sub-region including in Wirral Globe, Liverpool Express and Warrington Guardian.
We’ve also seen considerable engagement on our social media channels and continue to post and interact with others on this topic, in order to drive awareness of the campaign and the smokefree programme.
Nationally, Stoptober has received significant attention, particularly since the launch coincided with the release of new data on smoking prevalence from the Office of National Statistics. This new data showed that smoking rates in Cheshire and Merseyside continue to come down and are below the national average with 10.4% of adults in the subregion regularly smoking.
There is still work to be done however, and supporting initiatives such as Stoptober is a key part of the All Together Smokefree programme. We hope to see activity in this area build as the project rolls out, so here’s to an even more successful Stoptober 2025.
