• smoking
• socioeconomic

Given the oft quoted proposition that health promotion interventions frequently increase, rather than decrease, socioeconomic inequalities in health (SEIH),¹ we were interested to read the article by Lowey et al.² However, we believe that the title of this article is misleading, that the authors have not analysed the data to its fullest potential, and that a number of the conclusions drawn are unjustified.

The authors do not present any data on the magnitude of inequalities in smoking in the areas studied either before or after the introduction of smoking cessation services. Without such data, conclusions relating to the impact of the intervention on inequalities in smoking rates by deprivation quintile can-not be drawn. As the authors note, the lack of data on overall smoking rates in the different deprivation quintiles means that one cannot immediately determine the impact of the intervention on smoking rates and hence inequalities. However, it is possible to carry out sensitivity analyses based on estimated smoking rates to investigate the potential impact of the intervention on inequalities in smoking.

Table 1 shows the number of male smokers before and after the intervention, …