Reducing the prevalence of cigarette smoking is an essential component of cancer control efforts. Public policies are social interventions that have the potential to reduce the prevalence of smoking by encouraging current smokers to quit and discouraging potential smokers from adopting the habit. Over the past decade, a growing number of states and communities have passed laws, often called clean Indoor Air Acts, that restrict smoking in public places and workplaces. This legislation has the potential for widespread impact on both nonsmokers' involuntary smoke exposure and the prevalence of smoking. Both effects would contribute to reducing the incidence of cancer. Our goal is to describe the prevalence and analyze the content of state and community legislation restricting smoking in public places and workplaces. Such a description of the legislation is a necessary preparation for the eventual study of its impact on smoking behavior. To accomplish these ends, this proposal will: (1) Identify and collect all state laws enacted as of July 1, 1988, which restrict smoking in public places and/or workplaces. (2) In a stratified random sample of U.S. cities, identify and collect local ordinances enacted as of July 1, 1988, which restrict smoking in public places and/or workplaces. (3) Analyze this information to estimate the prevalence of state and local clean indoor air laws, summarize the variability in their contents, and describe geographic and temporal trends in prevalence and content. (4) Develop an index to quantify the degree of restrictiveness or comprehensiveness of these laws and use it to analyze geographic and temporal patterns in the strength of state and community clean indoor air laws. Products of the study will include: (1) a current data base of state and local clean indoor air laws; (2) methodology useful for future monitoring of this trend; (3) analysis of the current status of these laws; and (4) an index of policy strength for future evaluations of the impact of these laws.
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