  Reducing youth tobacco use is critical for improving child health since
tobacco use is associated with respiratory problems, and nicotine may interfere
with healthy brain development. While tobacco regulation has contributed to
declines in cigarette use among youth, these declines have occurred more
quickly for youth of high socioeconomic status (SES) compared to youth of low
SES. A major barrier to smoking cessation for adolescents of low SES is
coordination of access and transportation to in-person treatment sessions.
Low-SES youth may have family obligations that limit their ability to access
in-person treatment. At the same time, mobile use among adolescents is high:
85% have smartphones. Additionally, adolescents engage in texting at high
rates, suggesting that they are well-suited for mobile instant messaging
interventions. Mobile interventions have shown promise for youth, but their use
remains low. Thus, more research is needed to develop effective and engaging
mobile interventions to increase quit rates. In this paper, we provide a brief
review of approaches to adolescent smoking cessation and describe the promise
of chatbots for smoking cessation.
