A new study has revealed that financial incentives determine more people to quit smoking, compared to when no cash reward is involved, which accounts for the most cogent evidence brought forth so far that smokers who are paid to kick the habit are more willing to change their behavior.

The study, which was published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, is one of the largest of the like and has been put forward at a time when it seems that financial incentives coming from employers, schools and other institutions, aimed at getting people to improve the quality of their life are on the rise.

Currently, smoking is one of the major causes of premature death in the United States, with 480,000 Americans a year being the estimated death toll.

Approximately 20 percent of U.S. adults smoke, which translates as a decrease by 25 percent from ten years ago, while despite the fact that many claim they want to kick the habit, previous research performed in recent years has found that less than 3 percent of the people who try to quit each year are able to stay cigarette-free for life.

The new study, conducted by researchers led by a team from the University of Pennsylvania, involved monitoring 878 General Electric Company employees over a period of eighteen months back in 2005 and 2006.

All the participants smoked one pack of cigarettes a day on average, while for the research, they were divided into two groups and received information concerning quitting smoking.

The persons in one of the groups were offered $100 for completing a smoking-cessation program, $250 in case they stopped smoking within six months after having enrolled in the study, along with another $400 for being cigarette-free for an additional period of six months.

Results showed that among those who had been given financial incentives, 14.7% had quit smoking within the first year of the study, while in the second group, the percentage was only 5.

As for continuing to abstain, at the end of the study, 9.4% of the paid group were still nicotine-free, compared to 3.6% of those who did not receive payment.