Since smoking was banned in public places in 2007, asthmatic wellness has drastically improved. This is according to researchers from the University of Bath, who have found an annual 5% (1,900) fall in number of adult asthma sufferers admitted to hospital as an emergency.
Published in the journal Thorax, the study examined the 502,000 emergency admissions for asthma among adults aged 16 and over in England between April 1997 and December 2010. The researchers then accounted for other variables, such as seasonal temperatures, variations in population size, and long-term trends in the prevalence of asthma, and found that emergency admissions for asthma fell by 4.9% among adults for each of the first three years following the introduction of the smoking ban.
It may seem that other countries’ asthma sufferers have seen greater improvements to their wellbeing, as smoking laws introduced elsewhere have been linked with up to 40% reductions in the number of emergency asthma admissions. However, the researchers noted that this might be because many workplaces in England had already adopted smoke-free policies before the nationwide ban took effect. They concluded that their finding, ‘provides further support to a growing body of national and international evidence of the positive effects that introducing smoke-free policies has on public health.’
According to Emily Humphreys, head of policy and public affairs at the charity Asthma UK, ‘Eight out of 10 people with asthma tell us that other people’s smoke makes their asthma worse. That’s why we campaigned for the smoke-free laws and are delighted to see evidence of the benefits these are having on the millions of people with asthma in England. By taking action to reduce asthma triggers, we can prevent asthma attacks that can lead to hospitalisation and even death. However, more still needs to be done to prevent attacks, which kill three people each day in the UK.’
Dr Penny Woods, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, commented, ‘This is important new research that further demonstrates how the smoking ban has dramatically improved people’s lives and made smokers more aware of the harm smoking does to their health. But another 207,000 young people are still starting smoking every year in the UK, and 100,000 people are still dying earlier than they should because of smoking-related diseases.’
She continued, ‘Nearly a third of a million GP appointments each year are caused by children who are the victims of passive smoking. These horrendous figures show the scale of the problem we are still facing. That is why the government, if they are serious about saving lives, must now introduce legislation in the Queen’s Speech on 8 May to bring in plain packaging and ban smoking in cars with children present.’
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