Posted on 11/16/2011 12:39:21 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
RALEIGH – Emergency room visits by North Carolinians experiencing heart attacks have declined by 21 percent since the January 2010 start of the state’s Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars Law. State Health Director Dr. Jeffrey Engel reported the results to the Justus-Warren Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Task Force this morning.
“We pushed for passage of this law because we knew it would save lives,” said Governor Bev Perdue, who signed the law into effect. “Our goal was to protect workers and patrons from breathing secondhand smoke and we are seeing positive results.”
The N.C. Division of Public Health report cites studies from numerous communities, states and countries that show similar declines in heart attack rates after enacting tobacco-free policies as well as a 2008 Institute of Medicine report concluding smoke-free laws are a proven way to decrease heart attack rates.
According to U.S. Surgeon General’s Reports from 2006 and 2010, chemicals in tobacco smoke narrow the blood vessels, raise blood pressure and heart rate, and trigger chemical changes in the blood that make cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks, more likely to happen in the hours following breathing the smoke.
“The Institute of Medicine has evaluated the effects of indoor smoking bans world-wide, and data consistently show that smoke-free laws reduce heart attacks,” Dr. Engel said. “The Centers for Disease Control acknowledges that secondhand smoke exposure causes heart attacks; even a brief stay in a smoky area can trigger a heart attack in someone who is at risk, such as those with heart disease, a family history of heart disease, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol.”
Engel reported that the decline in heart attacks in North Carolina in 2010 represents an estimated $3.3 to $4.8 million in health care cost savings. Secondhand smoke is a known trigger for other health conditions like asthma, stroke, and chest pain, and is a major risk factor for lung cancer, the state’s leading cancer killer.
A team of researchers from the Division of Public Health and the University of North Carolina Department of Emergency Medicine used statewide emergency department data from the North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collection Tool (NCDETECT) to examine rates of heart attacks before the law in 2008 and 2009 compared to rates after the law took effect in 2010. These results add to a growing number of studies documenting the health benefits of smoke-free legislation across the nation and the world.
“North Carolina’s experience in seeing reduced heart attack rates after implementation of smoke-free legislation is consistent with others that have taken this important step to enhance the population’s health,” Dr. David Goff of the Justus Warren Heart Disease and Stroke Task Force said. “Informed by this strong evidence, we should now act to protect all workers in North Carolina, not just those working in restaurants and bars, from the hazards of second hand smoke.”
The heart attack study is posted at N.C. Report on Heart Attack Rate After Smoke-Free Law.
Does this mean that people who hire domestic workers won't be able to smoke in their own homes while the workers are on the premises?
A joint government-university study that shows good results from a government policy? I’m shocked!
(In all fairness, it is backed up by other studies.)
Nanny State PING!
That is because nobody is working and there is no stress setting at home collecting un-employment!
“Emergency room visits by North Carolinians experiencing heart attacks have declined by 21 percent since the January 2010 start of the state’s Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars Law”
That means that smokers are staying home and eating better and drinking less.
Oh yea?
Have the researchers checked the traffic fatality or incident rate way up since they pass the law?
Speaking of ‘cause and effect’, completely non-related, of course.
Higher unemployment means fewer hours worked. Fewer hours means fewer heart attacks. Unemployment saves lives!
Very scientific “modeling”, LOL:
Supporting data.
We collected county-level gender- and age-specific stimates of population from North Carolina’s Office of State Budget and Management. We extracted county-specific weekly average temperature data from the Southeast Regional Climate Center (http://www.sercc.com). For counties without a weather tation, average temperature was based on average weekly temperatures recorded in all counties that are adjacent to the county with the missing data. Data on weekly rates of ED visits for influenza like illness (ILI) were accessed from the NC DETECT system and defined using NC DETECT’s syndrome based reporting definition.
Statistical Analysis
We used an interrupted time series design to evaluate whether the implementation of smoke-free legislation on Jan. 1, 2010, was associated with a change in the rate of ED visits for AMI. We calculated crude and adjusted rate ratios
by modeling the weekly number of ED visits for...
I smell BS. Somebody please let the herd out.
TC
The figures from the study actually suggest otherwise. The reduction from 2008 to 2009 was about 900 ER visits. In 2010 the reduction was around 500. It could be argued that the legislation slowed the reduction by about half.
People who eat out more often have higher cholesteral.
Thanks for the ping!
As good old Dad used to say: “Horse Puckey.”
/.02
Yeah its BS alright.. these govt funded “Studies” always manage to come out right after a ban is passed.. means nothing because the sole purpose of the “study” is to simply say “See we were right govt knows best”
Your best bet is to ignore these kind of silly fake studies.
I hate these so-called studies. The results presume that all of these people that had MI’s were regular bar patrons that went to places that allowed smoking. And now these barflys are not having as many heart attacks. That is simply not provable or even credible. How do prove a negative? You can’t demostrate that these people wouldn’t have had a heart attack anyway.
The correct question for the "reporter" to ask is how the incidence of heart attacks dropped in the previous 2 year period ('08-'10), and in the 2 year period prior to that.
I'd bet that it's not too different from the period measured (1/10 to current, I'm supposing, but the article conveniently left that out as well).
NO NO NO NO
This is all bogus BS. All “studies” in regard to this have been proven to be doctored in one way or another.
You were probably able to do that analysis in just a couple minutes. I wish there were someone in the media or the legislature capable of pointing out the same. Unfortunately, most people will believe this baloney and it only invites the nannies to up their game.
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