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New Study Links Smoke-Free Ordinances to Fewer Heart Attacks

Researchers Present New Evidence of Smoke-Free Laws Improving Public Health at National Medical Conference

Source: Press release by Colorado study researchers
Published: November 14, 2005

PUEBLO, Colo., Nov. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Heart attack rates in Pueblo, Colo., dropped by nearly 30 percent after the city passed a smoke-free ordinance, according to a new study released today at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions, a premier peer-reviewed conference, in Dallas. The study validates previous scientific evidence that indoor smoke-free laws can dramatically reduce heart attacks and means that 108 fewer people had heart attacks in Pueblo in an 18-month period.
 
Pueblo is a community of about 104,000 located 110 miles south of Denver. The city passed its smoke-free law in 2003, restricting smoking in almost all businesses and indoor areas open to the public, including bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and bingo halls that are within city limits.
 
Only one other study to date has evaluated the impact of smoke-free laws on public health. As a result, physician researchers from Pueblo and Denver sought to replicate a groundbreaking 2003 study done in Helena, Mont., that showed restrictions on public exposure to secondhand smoke caused a sharp decline in heart attacks.
 
A goal of the Pueblo study was to see whether the Helena study's findings were unique to that community or if they could be the basis of broader evidence that links smoke-free ordinances to a reduction in heart attack rates. The Pueblo study affirmed that such laws can cause a dramatic improvement in public health, within even the first few months. Pueblo's study reinforces the Helena findings based on similar but improved methodology, including a sample size three times larger than the one used in Helena.
 
Researchers evaluated the number of heart attacks in Pueblo during a three-year period from January 2002 to December 2004. This timeframe covered the year and a half before the city's Smoke-Free Air Act was passed on July 1, 2003, as well as a year and a half afterward.
 
In the year and a half before Pueblo's smoke-free ordinance went into effect, 399 heart attack patients were admitted to the city's two primary hospitals. In the year and a half following enactment of the ordinance, the number of heart attack admissions dropped to 291, representing a 27 percent decrease.
 
The study didn't distinguish between smokers and nonsmokers, but rather represented a combination of both smokers and those impacted by secondhand smoke.
 
"We're adding to a growing body of evidence showing that indoor smoke-free environments have the potential to rapidly improve a community's overall health, while drastically reducing the number of people having heart attacks," said Dr. Christine Nevin-Woods, director of the Pueblo City-County Health Department. "With so many communities around the country considering smoke-free laws, this study provides important knowledge that people can be healthier if secondhand smoke is removed from public places."
 
Nevin-Woods collaborated with several other researchers on the Pueblo heart study.
 
"We already know that tobacco smoke does harm to nonsmokers, most notably to their cardiovascular systems," added Dr. Mori Krantz, a cardiologist and director of prevention programs at the Colorado Prevention Center, who led the scientific analysis of the Pueblo data. "This study further validates the argument that limiting exposure to deadly tobacco smoke can save lives."
 
Each year, more than 440,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses. About 53,000 people die from the effects of exposure to secondhand smoke; 49,000 of these are nonsmokers who die from coronary heart disease.
 
"Colorado has a long history of being one of the healthiest states in the nation," said Karen DeLeeuw, director of Colorado's State Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership. "Citizens living in communities that support reducing exposure to secondhand smoke are now further protected from the devastation of a heart attack."
 
The study's researchers included Dr. Nick Alsever, an endocrinologist and vice president for medical affairs at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo; Dr. Carl E. Bartecchi, clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine; Krantz; and Nevin-Woods.