More immediate health benefits from smokefree laws: Fewer hospitalizations for respiratory tract infections in kids

Jasper Been and colleagues recently published a paper, “Smoke-free legislation and childhood hospitalizations for respiratory tract infections,” that is an important addition to the evidence that there are rapid health benefits following implementation of smokefree laws.
 
This paper examines hospital admissions for respiratory tract infections among children under 15 in England before and after implementation of England’s smokefree law in July 2007.  They found that admissions immediately dropped by 3.5% following the law, with continuing declines after that.  Between mide-2007 when the law passed and 2012 there were about 11,000 fewer hospital admissions for childhood respiratory tract infections than would have been expected based on patterns before the law.
 
That’s only a big positive health impact, but it is an immediate savings in medical costs.
 
Here is the abstract:
 

Second-hand smoke exposure is a major risk factor for respiratory tract infections (RTIs). Although evidence suggests important early-life health benefits of smoke-free public environments, the impact on childhood RTIs is unclear. We investigated the association between England's smoke-free legislation and childhood RTI hospitalisations. We used the Hospital Episode Statistics database to obtain nationwide data on hospital admissions for acute RTIs among children (