Almost 4,000 lives have been saved in Ireland since the introduction nine years ago of a ban on smoking in the workplace, a study claims.
Most of the lives saved since March 2004 are those of non-smokers who would have died from the effects of passive smoking.
The study shows 3,726 smoking-related deaths have been prevented since the introduction of the workplace smoking ban by then health minister Micheál Martin.
The results are published this week in the American online scientific journal, Plos One.
The study involved researchers from Brunel University in London, the Environmental Health Sciences Institute, Dublin Institute of Technology, and The Tobacco Free Research Institute Ireland.
Luke Clancy, director of TFRI and a member of the research team, said that since Ireland became the first country in the world to implement a national workplace smoking ban, it was important to establish that there are significant health benefits.
“Previous studies have shown decreases in cardiovascular mortality following the implementation of comprehensive smoking bans,” said Prof Clancy. “Our study shows that mortality decreases were primarily due to reductions in passive smoking, rather than a reduction in active smoking, and we remember that this [protection from passive smoke] was the basis for the introduction of the 2004 legislation.”
Source: Dan Buckley, Irish Examiner, 30/04/13
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