More evidence that smokefree laws protect people from SHS and facilitate quitting

Kai-Wen Cheng, Feng Liu, Mariaelena Gonzalez, and I just published  “THE EFFECTS OF WORKPLACE CLEAN INDOOR AIR LAW COVERAGE ON WORKERS’ SMOKING-RELATED OUTCOMES,” in Health Economics, which adds to the literature that smokefree workplace laws not only protect people from secondhand smoke but also facilitate quitting.
 
Here is the abstract: 
 
This study investigated the effects of workplace clean indoor air law (CIAL) coverage on worksite compliance with CIALs, smoking participation among indoor workers, and secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure among nonsmoker indoor workers. This study improved on previous research by using the probability of a resident in a county covered by workplace CIALs, taking into account the state, county, and city legislation. The county-level probability of being covered by a CIAL is merged into two large nationally representative US surveys on smoking behaviors: Tobacco Use Supplement of the Current Population Survey (2001–2010) and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (2000–2006) based on the year of the survey and respondent’s geographic location to identify respondents’ CIAL coverage. This study estimated several model specifications of including and not including state or county fixed effects, and the effects of workplace CIALs are consistent across models. Increased coverage by workplace CIALs significantly increased likelihood of reporting a complete smoking restriction by 8% and 10% for the two different datasets, decreased smoking participation among indoor workers by 12%, and decreased SHS exposure among nonsmokers by 28%.
 
The full paper is available here.