New EU funded research findings on smoking and European measures to control it show quite clearly that the ban on smoking in public places helps to reduce tobacco consumption. However, the study also stresses that such measures are just a part of the public policies which have to be put in place and should be accompanied by other actions such as price hikes, banning advertising and promotion, as well as information and warnings for consumers and support for smokers leaving the habit.

The team of scientists which has reached such conclusions was led by the Smoking Control Unit of the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) in Barcelona, Spain. These findings which have been published in the interactive open-access journal for the communication of all peer-reviewed scientific and medical research PLoS ONE, concluded that tighter controls coincide with curbed tobacco consumption and reduced exposure to second-hand smoke.

All the political measures put in place by public authorities in order to reduce tobacco consumption, including both prohibition as well as other informative and supportive measures, make up the Tobacco Control Scale (TCS), a tool developed in 2006 to measure and monitors the implementation of such control policies in European countries. A high score indicates an intense policy effort, with individual policies weighted for impact.

To analyse the effectiveness of such measures in the 27 Member States of the EU, ICO researchers joined forces with colleagues in Barcelona, Dublin (Ireland) and Milan (Italy). Together, they correlated TCS information with the outcomes of a Eurobarometer survey on tobacco consumption, a study funded by the European Commission as part of its strategy to fight against smoking habits.

Key results from the underlying Eurobarometer survey included that 3 out of 10 Europeans (31.5%) aged 15 and over are smokers, and 13.6% of non-smokers report regular exposure to second-hand smoke at home. Cross-referencing with the TCS scores notably revealed that smoking seems to be somewhat less frequent in countries with higher scores in the TCS (such as Ireland, Malta, Sweden and the United Kingdom), but is more widespread in countries with lower TCS scores. Self-reported exposure to second-hand smoke appears to follow a similar trend.