Smoke-free air laws and perceived norms about smoking in four Texas cities

Background: As smoke-free air laws become more common throughout the world, there is a growing body of evidence that these laws are effective in reducing smoking behavior. Less is known, however, about the mechanisms by which these laws may change smoking behavior. Moreover, few studies have explored the impact of local community-wide laws.

Methods: This study included 407 adults from four Texas cities (two with comprehensive smoke-free air laws and two with no smoke-free air law) who were contacted by random digit dialing and interviewed by telephone. We used sequential multiple regression analyses to examine the association between level of local smoke-free air law and four perceived norms about smoking after controlling for several demographic factors and smoking status.

Results: Living in a Texas city with a comprehensive smoke-free air law made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of the perceived prevalence of smoking (p<.05), the perception of others' views about the acceptability of smoking (p<.001), and the perception of others' views about whether smokers should take measures to not smoke (p<.05), but not one's own view about the acceptability of smoking.

Conclusions: The results from this study suggest that smoke-free air laws are more likely to influence perceptions of others' smoking-related attitudes and behaviors than one's own. Thus, smoke-free air laws may be changing smoking behaviors by first influencing perceived norms about smoking.