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. 2019 Jan 31:16:A8.
doi: 10.18332/tid/94827. eCollection 2018.

Prevalence and correlates of different smoking bans in homes and cars among smokers in six countries of the EUREST-PLUS ITC Europe Surveys

Marcela Fu  1   2   3 , Yolanda Castellano  1   2 , Olena Tigova  1   2 , Christina N Kyriakos  4   5 , Geoffrey T Fong  6   7 , Ute Mons  8 , Witold A Zatoński  9   10 , Thomas K Agar  6 , Anne C K Quah  6   7 , Antigona C Trofor  11   12 , Tibor Demjén  13 , Krzysztof Przewoźniak  9   14 , Yannis Tountas  15 , Constantine I Vardavas  4   5 , Esteve Fernández  1   2   3 ; EUREST-PLUS consortium
Affiliations

Prevalence and correlates of different smoking bans in homes and cars among smokers in six countries of the EUREST-PLUS ITC Europe Surveys

Marcela Fu et al. Tob Induc Dis. .

Abstract

Introduction: Second-hand smoke exposure has decreased in a number of countries due to widespread smoke-free legislation in public places, but exposure is still present in private settings like homes and cars. Our objective was to describe to what extent smokers implement smoking rules in these settings in six European Union (EU) Member States (MS).

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of adult smokers from Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Spain (ITC six European countries survey, part of the EUREST-PLUS Project). We analysed data from 6011 smokers regarding smoking rules in their homes and in cars with children (no rules, partial ban, total ban). We described the prevalence of smoking rules by EU MS and several sociodemographic and smoking characteristics using prevalence ratios (PR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) derived from Poisson regression models. \.

Results: In homes, 26.5% had a total smoking ban (from 13.1% in Spain to 35.5% in Hungary), 44.7% had a partial ban (from 41.3% in Spain to 49.9% in Greece), and 28.8% had no-smoking rules (from 20.2% in Romania to 45.6% in Spain). Prevalence of no-smoking rules in cars with children was 16.2% (from 11.2% in Germany to 20.4% in Spain). The correlates of not restricting smoking in homes and cars included: low education (PR=1.51; 95%CI: 1.20-1.90 and PR=1.55; 95%CI: 1.09-2.20), smoking >30 cigarettes daily (PR=1.53; 95%CI: 1.10-2.14 and PR=2.66; 95%CI: 1.40-5.05) and no attempts to quit ever (PR=1.18; 95%CI: 1.06-1.31 and PR=1.28; 95%CI: 1.06-1.54).

Conclusions: Among smokers in six EU MS, no-smoking rules were more prevalent in homes than in cars with children. Whilst awareness about the health effects of exposure to tobacco smoke on children seemed to be high, more research is needed to better understand the factors that promote private smoke-free environments.

Keywords: Europe; WHO FCTC; private settings; smokers; voluntary smoke-free regulation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests, financial or otherwise, related to the current work. K. Przewoźniak reports grants and personal fees from the Polish League Against Cancer, outside the submitted work. C. I. Vardavas reports that he is the Strategic Development Editor of TID and that there are no conflicts of interest with this current work. The rest of the authors have also completed and submitted an ICMJE form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prevalence of smoking rules in smokers’ homes and cars with children, 2016
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