Policy Support for Smoke-Free and E-Cigarette Free Multiunit Housing

Abstract

Purpose: Estimate public support for prohibiting multiunit housing (MUH) e-cigarette and cigarette use.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Data from an online panel survey.

Sample: A Fall 2018 nationally representative sample of 3,415 (99.3% response rate) United States (US) adults 18-64 years old.

Measures: Policy support for prohibiting MUH smoking and e-cigarette use, sociodemographics, and tobacco perceptions and behaviors.

Analysis: Weighted multivariate logistic regression examined predictors of support for prohibiting 1) cigarette use and 2) e-cigarette use in MUH.

Results: Most respondents expressed support for prohibiting smoking (76.9%) and e-cigarette use (74.0%) in MUH. About 17% (n = 588) of the sample lived in MUH, and living in MUH was not predictive of support for either policy. For both cigarette and e-cigarette policies, current smokers (n = 630; OR = 0.44, p < 0.001; OR = 0.59, p < 0.01) and current e-cigarette users (n = 305; OR = 0.42, p < 0.001; OR = 0.22, p < 0.001) had lower odds of support. Notably, while most smokers supported prohibiting cigarette (51.4%) and e-cigarette use in MUH (51.1%), there was less support among current e-cigarette users for prohibiting cigarette (48.1%) and e-cigarette use in MUH (34.5%).

Conclusion: Majority support for prohibiting smoking and e-cigarette use in MUH is promising for policy adoption; however, lower support of both policies among e-cigarette users needs to be examined, as increasing use of e-cigarettes may be shifting social norms away from support for smoke free housing policies.

Keywords: community; health policy; low income; racial minority groups; tobacco control.