After the introduction of smoke-free laws in England, there were 1,200 fewer emergency heart attack admissions during a 12-month period, says a report published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), today.

Dr Anna Gilmore, University of Bath, and team demonstrated in their study that the introduction of a law banning smoking in all enclosed workplaces and public places was by a 2.4% reduction in heart attack admissions and this has important public health benefits given the high rates of heart disease globally.

The authors explained that it has been established for quite a while now that exposure to secondhand smoke (passive smoking) raises the risk of heart disease – smoke-free laws have been introduced in different countries, states and cities to address this issue.

The researchers gathered data on emergency hospital admissions for patients aged 18+ from July 2002 to September 2008. They then compared the records for the five years before the introduction of smoke-free laws to the period after legislation came into force.

Previous studies that looked at the effects of smoke-free laws have had varying results – the largest falls in heart attack admissions had been reported in smaller American studies.

This latest study has several advantages over the previous ones:

  • Size of population – with a population of 49 million, England is the largest jurisdiction to go smoke-free (NB: England population is 49 million, UK is 62 million – legislation applied to just England).
  • The researchers adjusted the data to take into account underlying trends in admissions and variations in other factors such as seasonal temperature and population size.

The authors also suggest that another reason for a smaller reduction in heart admissions in their study is because smoke-free legislation in England was introduced at a time when many public places and workplaces were already smoke-free.

Dr Michelle Sims, first author of the paper, said:

A 2.4% reduction may sound small, but given we were looking at the whole of England it actually means the prevention of 1200 emergency admissions during the first year of the smoke-free law.

Dr Gilmore concludes that smoke-free public places may lead to falls in the total number of hospital admissions for heart attacks, even in countries with pre-existing smoking restrictions. She adds that given the high rate of heart attacks:

Even the relatively small reduction seen in England has important public health benefits.

“Short term impact of smoke-free legislation in England: retrospective analysis of hospital admissions for myocardial infarction”
Michelle Sims, Roy Maxwell, Linda Bauld, Anna Gilmore
Published 8 June 2010, doi:10.1136/bmj.c2161
BMJ 2010;340:c2161

Secondhand smoke, also known as passive smoking, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is the involuntary breathing in (inhalation) of smoke from tobacco products used by others – the inhaler is usually a non-smoker. It occurs when the smoke permeates any environment – usually a closed environment – causing its inhalation by individuals within that environment.

Written by Christian Nordqvist