|
 This week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) implemented a ban on cigarettes, cigars, and pipes inside
apartments, common areas and outdoor spaces within 25 feet of public
housing properties; it doesn't cover e-cigarettes.
While the primary goal of the ban is to improve indoor air quality
and reduce residents' exposure to secondhand smoke, it may also help
low-income smokers be more successful at quitting, researchers note
in PLOS One.
The researchers analyzed data from a nationwide survey asking
participants about their smoking habits, whether smoking was allowed
in their homes, and whether they had tried or succeeded in quitting
over a 10-year period from 2002 to 2011. They also looked at other
factors that can impact cessation like income and education.
Affluent smokers were almost twice as likely to succeed at quitting
for at least 30 days as low-income smokers, the study found.
People with smoke-free homes were 60 percent more likely to quit
smoking for at least 30 days than people without this prohibition,
the study also found. However, the prevalence of smoke-free homes
was 33 percent lower among low-income people than among more
affluent individuals.
"Reducing consumption is a predictor of successful quitting," said
lead study author Dr. Maya Vijayaraghavan of the University of
California, San Francisco.
"The gap in cessation outcomes between lower and higher income
individuals could be reduced by up to 36 percent if more lower
income individuals adopted smoke-free homes," Vijayaraghavan said by
email. "This is substantial reduction in the cessation gap at the
population level."
Smoke-free homes might aid cessation by making it harder for smokers
to light up whenever they like, Vijayaraghavan said. Smokers might
also cut back on smoking because it's less convenient, and then
cutting back might in turn make it easier to quit.
Over the study period, as more people across the country began to
live in smoke-free homes, more people quit smoking for more than a
month, an early indicator of successful quitting. The smokers who
didn't successfully quit consumed fewer cigarettes.
[to top of second column] |
The researchers found no difference over the study period in how
often U.S. smokers tried to quit, suggesting that other factors,
such as living in smoke-free homes or stricter state tobacco control
policies, explained the increase in smoking cessation.
The study wasn't a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how smoke-free homes might directly cause more people to stop
smoking.
Even so, the results add to a large body of evidence suggesting that
smoke-free housing can make it easier for people to quit, said
Judith Prochaska, a researcher at Stanford University in California
who wasn't involved in the study.
"Smoke-free housing makes it easier for people to quit because it
removes cues that trigger cravings to use the drug (e.g., seeing and
smelling a cigarette, seeing lighters, ashtrays, cigarette packs),
and it removes exposure to second and thirdhand smoke," Prochaska
said by email. Both inhaled secondhand smoke and thirdhand smoke
left on surfaces like carpets and drapes both contain nicotine as
well as carcinogens, Prochaska noted.
"Seeing people smoking on the streets or in parks also can be cues
that trigger cravings, but they are more easily avoided than smoking
in one's residence," Prochaska said. "No amount of ventilation and
filtration has been found to effectively remove smoke exposure in
interior environments."
Smoke-free housing alone may not be enough to help many people quit,
said Dr. Carlos Roberto Jaen of the University of Texas Health
Science Center in San Antonio.
"These smoke-free housing policies need to be supported with
cessation support in terms of cessation aids - for example promotion
of tobacco cessation helplines or access to effective medications,"
Jaen, who wasn't involved the study, said by email.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2KrTLjM PLOS One, online July 27, 2018.
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
