June 21, 2015
Frank Dusemund and colleagues just published a paper in Tobacco Control reporting a 22.4% drop in hospitalizations for acute exacerbated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Graubünden, Switzerland after it passed a strong comprehensive smokefree law. This is a significantly larger drop than the 7.0% drop observed in the rest of Switzerland.
This drop is consistent with the 24% drop (95% CI 15% to 32%) in hospitalizations for respiratory conditions that we found in our 2012 meta-analysis of the effects of smoking restrictions on hospitalizations for heart attacks, strokes, and pulmonary conditions.
The list just keeps growing.
The economic argument, long trumpeted by the tobacco companies and their allies and front groups, has strongly become an argument for such laws. Public health advocates should be making these arguments not only for smokefree laws, but for tobacco control in general.
Here is their abstract:
June 21, 2015
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:
June 17, 2015
The UN is in the process of preparing a new set of Sustainable Development Goals, a follow-on to the existing Millennium Development Goals. This is a very important document because it guides a wide range of government and NGO policies worldwide. The final document, goals and targets will be approved by the UN Member States in September.
The Co-Chairs of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals released the Zero Draft of the document proposing goals and targets for the post-2015 agenda and invited comment. The Zero Draft is long, but do not be intimidated. Our comments refer to the relevant sections for tobacco, so you can jump to them.
The good news is that the draft specifically addresses accelerating implementation of the WHO FCTC and mentions decreasing premature mortality from NCDs. However, there is not enough specificity about tobacco, the draft does not list the FCTC as part of global commitments, and does not exclude the tobacco industry from public-private, as required by the FCTC. This exclusion could be exploited by the tobacco companies as an endorsement of their “corporate social responsibility” efforts that are designed to undermine implementing the FCTC and effective tobacco control policies.
June 15, 2015
Erin Sutfin and colleagues at Wake Forest University just published “ The Impact of Trying Electronic Cigarettes on Cigarette Smoking by College Students: A Prospective Analysis” in American Journal of Public Health that adds to the evidence that e-cigarette use is depressing quitting smoking cigarettes.
This paper follows several hundred college students over 3 years during which time they assessed smoking behavior, how often respondents smoked (a measure of nicotine dependence) other tobacco use, and a variety of personality and demographic characteristics. Controlling for all these factors, the authors found that among young adults who were smoking at baseline, e-cigarette use was associated with higher likelihood of smoking at follow-up.
Here is the abstract:
June 15, 2015
Kim Klausner, who has managed the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library and other related industry document collections so well for the past several years, is retiring and the UCSF Library is looking for someone to take over the position.
Here is the job announcement. Please pass it on to anyone you know who might be interested.
The Industry Documents Digital Library Manager develops and supports industry document collections publicly available on the UCSF Industry Documents Digital Library at http://ift.tt/1Fp53S3. The first and largest of these collections is the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library followed by others including the pharmaceutical industry and food. These digital archives of documents, acquired largely through litigation, serve as the foundation for collections that foster research that advances public health.