Relation between national-level tobacco control policies and individual-level voluntary home smoking bans in Europe

Background Little is known about the relationship between national tobacco control policies and implementation of private home smoking bans. Objective To determine the relationship between the Tobacco Control Scale (TCS), a score measuring nationallevel strength of tobacco control policies, and the prevalence of in-home smoking bans and beliefs on other tobacco control policies, among the Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU) that participated in the Pricing Policy And Control of Tobacco in Europe (PPACTE) project. Methods A face-to-face representative survey, based on 18 056 individuals aged ≥15 years, from 18 European countries—including 16 EU MS—was conducted in 2010. Multilevel logistic regression models were fit to examine the relationship between the TCS score and in-home smoking ban prevalence and beliefs that other policy approaches are useful. Results In 2010, the TCS scores ranged from 32 in Austria and Greece to 77 in England. The TCS score correlated with the prevalence of in-home smoking bans (rsp=0.65). A 10-unit increase in the TCS score significantly increased the odds of in-home smoking ban (OR=1.33; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.76). The odds of believing that providing cessation services (OR=1.21), raising prices (OR=1.01) and extending bans is useful (OR=0.93) were not significant. Conclusions Government tobacco control policies are positively related to the individual-level tobacco policy of having an in-home smoking ban.