Are the bars in Glasgow, Scotland, ready to ban smoking?

Abstract

The bar setting is of particular interest to Glasgow’s health promotion programmers, as it is the last setting in the City to address the issue of smoking. In general, 75% of the city’s workplaces restrict smoking, all of its health-care facilities are smoke-free, as are most of its education and public transport facilities. These long-established smoke- free policies, coupled with a sustained effort to promote cessation and discourage uptake of smoking, helped Glasgow*#x2019;s smoking prevalence to fall from 44% in 1983 to 32% in 1995. The leisure setting is important in the public health effort, both because of the amount of time people spend there, whether as workers or customers, and because of its significance to young people: the social norms in the leisure environment have a large impact on young people’s aspirations and behaviour. Two studies were therefore undertaken to explore issues affecting the introduction of smoking restrictions in bars in Glasgow, in order to provide information on this aspect of health promotion strategy and programme development.