Smokers are more likely to cutback or quit smoking entirely if tobacco use inside the home or at work was completely banned, a new study found.
"When there's a total smoking ban in the home, we found that smokers are more likely to reduce tobacco consumption and attempt to quit than when they're allowed to smoke in some parts of the house," Wael K. Al-Delaimy, professor and chief of the Division of Global Health in the University of California, San Diego Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, said in a statement.
Researchers also found that the same held true for smokers who lived city or town that banned smoking.
The findings emphasize the public health importance of smoking bans inside and outside the home as a way to change smoking behaviors and reduce tobacco consumption at individual and societal levels, Al-Delaimy said.
"California was the first state in the world to ban smoking in public places in 1994 and we are still finding the positive impact of that ban by changing the social norm and having more homes and cities banning smoking," he said.
Based on the study, researchers found that total home smoking bans were significantly associated with reduced consumption and successful quitting, but partial bans were not. Similarly, smokers who report smoking is broadly banned in their city were also more likely to attempt to quit and succeed than in places where smoking is not banned.
Researchers surveyed 1,718 current smokers identified as a representative sample of the adult population in California.
They also found that total home bans were more effective in reducing smoking among persons 65 years and older and among females, while city smoking bans were significantly associated with quit attempts in males, but not females.
"These results provide quantitative evidence that smoking bans that are mainly for the protection of nonsmokers from risks of secondhand smoke actually encourage quitting behaviors among smokers in California. They highlight the potential value of increasing city-level smoking bans and creating a win-win outcome," Al-Delaimy said.
