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Public smoking bans reduced child hospital visits for asthma

Rates of preterm births and child hospital visits for asthma have significantly declined as the result of smoking ban legislation in North America and Europe, according to data reported in The Lancet.

“Our research found significant reductions in preterm birth and severe asthma attacks in childhood, as well as a 5% decline in children being born very small for gestational age after the introduction of smoke-free laws,” Jasper V. Been, PhD, of the School for Public Health and Primary Care at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, said in a press release. “Together with the known health benefits in adults, our study provides clear evidence that smoking bans have considerable public health benefits for perinatal and child health, and provides strong support for WHO recommendations to create smoke-free public environments on a national level.”

In their meta-analysis, researchers identified 11 studies including more than 2.5 million births and 247,168 asthma exacerbations, according to data.

Jasper V. Been

Smoke-free legislation was associated with reductions in preterm births (in four studies of 1.3 million patients; –10.4%; 95% CI, –18.8 to –2) and hospital visits for asthma (in three studies of 225,753 events: –10.1%; 95% CI, –15.2 to –5). The researchers also did not observe a significant effect on low birth weight in six studies (>1.9 million patients: –1.7%; 95% CI, –5.1 to 1.6).

“This research has demonstrated the very considerable potential that smoke-free legislation offers to reduce preterm births and childhood asthma attacks,” Aziz Sheikh, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the University of Edinburgh, said in the release. “The many countries that are yet to enforce smoke-free legislation should in the light of these findings reconsider their positions on this important health policy question.”

In an accompanying commentary by Sara Kalkhoran, MD, and Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco; and department of medicine at UCSF, wrote that the smoke-free laws bring rapid health benefits while reducing health care costs.

“For example, between 1989 and 2008, implementation of California’s tobacco control program cost $2.4 billion and resulted in $243 billion in medical cost savings, a 100 to 1 return on investment,” they wrote.

Kalkhoran and Glantz concluded that the price of smoke-free laws and other tobacco control policies represent “a cost well worth paying.”

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.