Smoking risk drops significantly in college graduates when they live near areas that completely banned smoking in bars and restaurants, according to a new Drexel University study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Smoking risk drops significantly in college graduates when they live near areas that completely banned smoking in bars and restaurants, according to a new Drexel University study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
The study — led by former Drexel doctoral student Stephanie Mayne, PhD — found that the bans were associated with high gains in quit attempts by smokers with low incomes.
“Our results suggest that smoking bans may help start the process among people with lower socioeconomic status by making them more likely to try to quit smoking, but that more needs to be done to help translate it into successful smoking cessation,” Mayne said.
Mayne’s study linked 25 years of health data collected from young-to-middle-aged smokers to a database on smoking bans from the American Non-Smokers Rights Foundation.
The data showed that the effects of the smoking ban were not uniform in their effect on people with different education or income levels. Overall, the bans appeared to be most effective at reducing smoking risk in people who attained higher levels of education.
Read more at Drexel University
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