(RxWiki News) Smoking is linked to many health issues and yet these risks aren’t enough to motivate some to quit. Family, friends and coworkers might be able to help – ban smoking from work and home.
If you know someone who smokes help them by banning it. Researchers found that women who work or live in an environment were a smoking ban is strictly enforced are more motivated to quit.
"Encourage your loved-ones to quit smoking."
Lead author, Allison Rose, M.H.S., a contractor for SAIC-Frederick to the National Cancer Institute, found that women who never planned to quit were more likely to attempt it due to a “spur-of-the-moment” decision.
The study included 7,610 women who work outside of home and 81 percent claimed to smoke daily.
The researchers found that some women who planned on quitting did attempt it with either a home ban, work ban or both. However, what took researchers by surprise is 34 percent of women who had no intention of quitting made an attempt to quit when a home ban was enforced and 33 percent also attempted to stop smoking with a ban at both home and work. There were 25 percent of the participants who spontaneously attempted to quit even without any bans.
Home bans seem to work better than work bans, which makes sense because there’s a personal or family factor that drives women, Bill Blate, directore of tobacco programs at the American Lung Association, explains.
This is great news because smoke bans are in place so that others are not subjected to second-hand smoke, so getting smokers to actually quit overall is an added plus, Blate adds.
However, more work needs to be done because less than a third of the population reported to working or living in smoke free environments, Rose says.
The research is published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.
