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Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 08 Nov 2011 - 8:00 PST
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Since clean indoor air laws have been introduced, second hand smoke exposure amongst non-smokers had decreased, however, it raises concerns as these laws may encourage smokers to smoke more in their homes or other private venues. Children are up to two times as likely to take up the habit themselves if they live with an adult smoker. According to a new investigation strong clean indoor air laws are connected with large increases in voluntary smokefree policies in the home, as well. The study is published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Chief researcher Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, explains:
"Although the aim of clean indoor air laws is to reduce second hand smoke exposure in public venues, our results show that these laws have the important additional benefit of stimulating smokefree homes, with a larger association in homes occupied by smokers, protecting kids and other family members from second hand smoke."
In order to look at the probability of an individual living in a home with 100% smokefree ban, as well as how that linked to individual characteristics, household composition, and if the residential region is covered by clean indoor air laws, Dr. Glantz and his team evaluated data from the Tobacco Use Supplement to Current Population Survey (TUS-CPS), a nationally representative household survey of tobacco use.
Dr. Glantz, said:
"Living in a county fully covered by a 100% clean indoor air law in workplaces or restaurants and bars is associated with an increases likelihood of having a voluntary 100% smokefree-home rule, for both smoking and nonsmoking households. The presence of children in the home makes a smokefree rule more likely.Since the home remains a major source of second hand smoke exposure for children, this work shows that an additional justification for enacting smokefree legislation is the secondary effect of encouraging voluntary smokefree rules at home, particularly in homes occupied by smokers."
In an associated investigation also published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, investigators from the Moores UCSD Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, discovered that even though public health campaigns have lowered the exposure of children in the U.S. to second hand smoke at home, complete home smoking bans were only in half of U.S. households with both smokers and children.
Using data from the TUS-CPS, the investigators discovered that effectiveness of public health campaigns might not have been equal across demographic groups. Lead author Karen Messer, P.h.D, Professor and Director of Biostatistics at UCSD Moores Cancer Center, explained:
"Among U.S. households with both children and adult smokers, the prevalence of complete home smoking bans more than tripled from 1992-1993 to 2006-2007. While this is encouraging progress, gains were smallest among African-American households, and among households with older versus younger children. There were fewer smokefree households below the poverty line, in households with less education, and in states with high smoking prevalence. Effective interventions to promote smokefree homes among smoking families are needed, and this study can help identify populations that would benefit from such interventions."
In a linked commentary, Melbourne Melbourne F. Hovell, PhD, MPH, Director of the Center for Behavioral Epidemiology and Community Health, and his team from San Diego State University, call for mobile and other new technologies to be used for real-time measurements and interventions to gain a better understanding regarding the underlying mechanisms of observed associations, such as how public clean indoor air laws encourage home smoking bans.
Dr. Hovell, said:
"Both of these studies show that influences from the macro-environments (i.e. public policies on smoking, state-level smoking prevalence) had "spillover effects" on the microenvironment, such as home smoking bans. Mobile phone-based systems that use GPS and accelerometer capability, along with particle monitors, will soon be capable of measuring real-time physical activity and smoke in microenvironments and transmitting this information to exposed individuals, providers and policymakers. Doing so may lead more rapidly to health promoting technologies and for preventive medicine interventions in micro- and macro-environments."
Written by Grace Rattue
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
Kai-Wen Chang, PhD, Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, and James M. Lightwood, PhD
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 41, Issue 6 (December 2011) published by Elsevier (doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2011.08.014)
“Home Smoking Bans Among U.S. Households with Children and Smokers: Opportunities for Intervention”
Alice L. Mills, MD, MPH, Martha M. White, MS, John P. Pierce, PhD, and Karen Messer, PhD
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 41, Issue 6 (December 2011) published by Elsevier (doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2011.08.016).
Commentary: “Smokefree Community Policies Promote Home Smoking Bans: Unknown Mechanisms and Opportunities for Preventive Medicine,”
Melbourne F. Hovell, PhD, MPH, Christina N. Lessov-Schlaggar, PhD, and Ding Ding, MPH
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Volume 41, Issue 6 (December 2011) published by Elsevier (doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2011.09.015)
MLA
8 Dec. 2011.
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