Smoke-Free Policies at Home, Church, and Work: Smoking Levels and Recent Quit Attempts Among a Southeastern Rural Population, 2007

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to examine the cumulative effect of smoke-free policies and social support for smoking cessation in the home, at church, and at work on smoking levels and quit attempts in the context of a community-based study of rural African Americans and whites in the Southeast. METHODS We conducted a baseline survey to assess sociodemographics, smoking behavior, level of social support for smoking cessation, and smoke-free policies at home, church, and work. We created a variable for a weighted "dose" of smoking restrictions on the basis of the existence of policies in the 3 settings and a weighted score for social support and used bivariate analyses and multivariate regression to analyze data. RESULTS Of 134 survey participants, 18.7% had complete restrictions at home. Among church attendees, 39.4% had complete restrictions at church, and among those employed outside the home, 15.4% had complete restrictions at work. After controlling for age, sex, race, and education, the weighted dose of smoking restrictions was significantly related to having made a quit attempt in the past 12 months (odds ratio, 2.2; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-4.3) but not number of cigarettes smoked per day. Social support for cessation had no effect on recent quit attempts or number of cigarettes smoked per day. CONCLUSION Smoke-free policies have a cumulative effect on smoking behavior. These findings may inform interventions aimed at promoting comprehensive community-wide smoke-free policies.