Home > Association of national smoke-free policies with per-capita cigarette consumption and acute myocardial infarction mortality in Europe.

Sassano, Michele and Mariani, Marco and Pastorino, Roberta and Ricciardi, Walter and La Vecchia, Carlo and Boccia, Stefania (2024) Association of national smoke-free policies with per-capita cigarette consumption and acute myocardial infarction mortality in Europe. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 78, (6), pp. 388-394. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2023-220746.

External website: https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2024/03/14/jech...

BACKGROUND Evidence on the association between smoke-free policies and per-capita cigarette consumption and mortality due to acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Europe is limited. Hence, we aimed to assess this association and to evaluate which factors influence it.

METHODS We performed an interrupted time series analysis, including 27 member states of the European Union and the UK, on per-capita cigarette consumption and AMI mortality.A multivariate meta-regression was used to assess the potential influence of other factors on the observed associations.

RESULTS Around half of the smoke-free policies introduced were associated with a level or slope change, or both, of per-capita cigarette consumption and AMI mortality (17 of 35). As for cigarette consumption, the strongest level reduction was observed for the smoking ban issued in 2010 in Poland (rate ratio (RR): 0.47; 95% CI: 0.41, 0.53). Instead, the largest level reduction of AMI mortality was observed for the intervention introduced in 2012 in Bulgaria (RR: 0.38; 95% CI: 0.34, 0.42).Policies issued more recently or by countries with a lower human development index were found to be associated with a larger decrease in per-capita cigarette consumption. In addition, smoking bans applying to bars had a stronger inverse association with both cigarette consumption and AMI mortality.

CONCLUSIONS The results of our study suggest that smoke-free policies are effective at reducing per-capita cigarette consumption and AMI mortality. It is extremely important to monitor and register data on tobacco, its prevalence and consumption to be able to tackle its health effects with concerted efforts.


Item Type
Article
Publication Type
Irish-related, International, Open Access, Article
Drug Type
Tobacco / Nicotine
Intervention Type
Harm reduction, Policy
Date
2024
Identification #
https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2023-220746
Page Range
pp. 388-394
Publisher
BMJ Publishing
Volume
78
Number
6
EndNote

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