The English ban on smoking in public places may have helped cause a massive reduction in the number of children needing hospital admission for respiratory infections, researchers say today.
The major new study says the enforcement of the laws cut hospital admissions for children by 11,000 a year.
It is published ahead of World No Smoking Day on Sunday.
The law banned smoking in work-places and in pubs, restaurants and other public places from 2007. It was hoped it would encourage adults to give up smoking.
New laws will soon ban adults from smoking in a car with a child present.
The latest findings, published in the European Respiratory Journal, involved an analysis of some 1.6 million hospital admissions of children in England between 2001 and 2012.
The researchers conclude there was an immediate reduction of 13.8% in hospital admissions for lower respiratory tract infections – and a more gradual decrease in admissions for upper respiratory tract infections.
Researcher Dr Jasper Been, from Edinburgh University, UK, said: “Our results add to the growing body of evidence demonstrating the benefits of smoke-free legislation.
"Although our results cannot definitively establish a cause and effect, the rigorous analysis clearly shows that the introduction of smoke-free legislation was associated with significant reductions in hospital admissions among children."
Dr Carlos Jimenez-Ruiz, of the European Respiratory Society, said: “We know that more than 600,000 non-smokers die from exposure to passive smoke each year.
"The findings of this new study add more weight to the argument that smoke-free legislation is a valuable tool in reducing the health harms of smoking, particularly in children."
* The World Health Organisation today calls for action against the illicit trade in tobacco products. So far just eight countries have signed a proposed protocol on the topic.
It needs 40 countries to sign to make it an international treaty.
* An article in the journal Tobacco Control argues that agreements with the tobacco industry on the subject have failed and should be ended.
* A second UK study argues that parental smoking is putting some 400,000 children into poverty.
The study by Dr Tessa Langley, of Nottingham University medical school, is published in BMC Public Health.
Smoke-free legislation and childhood hospitalisations for respiratory tract infections European Respiratory Journal 29 May 2015; doi: 10.1183/09031936.00014615
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