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An International Smoking Ban—How Many Lives Will Be Saved?

  • Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke (P Perrone-Filardi and S. Agewall, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Multicomponent tobacco control strategies are crucial to combat the ongoing global smoking challenge. In the twenty-first century, many countries have signed up to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and in recent years a mounting number of countries and regions have implemented partial or complete smoking bans to protect the general public from passive smoke exposure. There is substantial evidence that workers, particularly in the hospitality sector, benefit from reduced exposure. More recently, several reports have appeared from different countries showing a temporal relationship between the introduction of a smoking ban and reduced hospital admissions for cardiovascular, respiratory and maternity outcomes. This will have a measurable benefit for public health, saving many lives. Multicomponent strategies could also reduce active smoking significantly if successfully implemented worldwide.

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Conflict of Interest

Cecily C. Kelleher declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Kate Frazer received a grant from a Health Research Board Cochrane Fellowship during the conduct of the study.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Correspondence to Cecily C Kelleher.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke

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Kelleher, C.C., Frazer, K. An International Smoking Ban—How Many Lives Will Be Saved?. Curr Atheroscler Rep 16, 418 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11883-014-0418-0

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