Smokefree Housing: Promising Practices for Controlling COPD

Nearly 15 million people in the US are diagnosed with COPD. It is a leading cause of physician and emergency department visits, and a primary cause of hospitalization in older adults. The healthcare costs of the disease are projected to be $800 billion over the next two decades. Yet public health has invested little in identifying and supporting interventions to reduce the burden of COPD on patients, families and communities. This presentation makes the case for adoption of smokefree policies in multiunit housing as a promising practice for reducing morbidity and mortality from COPD.

For people with COPD, exposure to secondhand smoke is associated with greater disease severity, more breathlessness, poorer physical health status and more restricted activity. Policies that reduce exposure to secondhand smoke have been shown to result in decreased hospitalizations for COPD, among other benefits.

Smokefree multiunit housing is emerging as a powerful strategy to reduce secondhand smoke exposure among vulnerable populations, including children, low-income and the elderly. Data on the impact of smokefree policies on the health of residents is extremely limited. Because such policies are relatively new, most evaluation has focused on implementation. Several communities funded by the Community Transformation Grants included health outcomes in their evaluation, and results will be available in the coming months.

This session will present tools for smokefree housing advocates to include health outcomes in program evaluation and projection of benefits, and for public health workers and COPD advocates who are inspired to pursue smokefree housing as a promising strategy for COPD control.