An examination of the relationship between municipal smoke-free bylaw strength and the odds of being a former smoker

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between municipal no-smoking bylaw strength and the odds of being a former smoker. METHODS: Data from Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey (Cycle 1.1, 2001) and a validated bylaw scoring scheme (2001) were linked and analyzed to determine whether the odds of being a former smoker were related to the strength of no-smoking bylaws in municipalities that had been matched for potentially confounding factors. The sample consisted of ever smokers (current and former smokers) from Ontario municipalities that did not have a no-smoking bylaw, or had a fully implemented no-smoking bylaw before September 2000. Data were analyzed using a Mantel-Haenszel Chi-square test and a logistic regression. RESULTS: The results from the Mantel-Haenszel (OR = 0.94, 95% CI 0.80-1.12) and logistic regression analyses (OR = 0.95, 95% CI 0.82-1.11) did not find support for the hypothesis that living in a municipality with a strong no-smoking bylaw would increase the odds of being a former smoker. DISCUSSION: Findings were inconsistent with previous studies that have found no-smoking restrictions in homes, workplaces and public places increase the odds that smokers attempt and succeed in quitting smoking. However, results from this study must be interpreted with caution because of the cross-sectional design and limited control of potentially important covariates.