Drop in child asthma since smoking ban

Freakbro said:
But they are analysing data from 2002 and from having a 2% increase year on year it suddenly dropped 12% in the first year following the smoking ban.

Please explain to me what drastic improvement in detection rates leading to better preventative measures happened suddenly in 2007?
Click to expand...

For a start this doesn't say anything about lowering asthma, just lowering asthma attacks with a severity that needs a trip to hospital.
Secondly I have no idea, as we are talking generally about trend not probing a causation. I have no idea what the detection rate over the last decade is, I have no idea about what and when new medicines/inhalers where introduced that could reduce sever reactions. We also have little idea about other triggers, but air poupltion as well as water pollution have been declining. Then has there been any new guidlines which can affect the results.
I bet you don't know any off these either.

As said correlation does not equal causation, or do we need some more pirate charts.

Not that I disagree totally, smoking is a trigger for asthma, which means less smoke, less chance of a trigger. It can't really be used as a support for the ban as a whole though, as there's so many ways a ban can be issued. For a start going to a pub is personal choice, where public buildings are a different matter.
 
Last edited:
If I recall correctly, global air pollution is up - but what we produce here in the UK is on the decline & has been for some time.
 
Glaucus said:
As said correlation does not equal causation, or do we need some more pirate charts.
Click to expand...

The word that gets missed off from that statement all the time is 'necessarily' ;)

There are of course times when correlation does equal causation, it just can't be accepted on face value.

Not that I disagree totally, smoking is a trigger for asthma, which means less smoke, less chance of a trigger. It can't really be used as a support for the ban as a whole though, as there's so many ways a ban can be issued. For a start going to a pub is personal choice, where public buildings our a different matter.
Click to expand...

I do wonder how much banning smoking in public places (pubs etc) would have affected child asthma attacks. I would have thought the 'growing evidence' that more people are not smoking in their homes would be a greater contributing effect.

For the record I am a social smoker and I approve of the smoking ban. Pubs etc are so much nicer to go in and not stink of stale tobacco. :)
 
Last thing I read that was linked to Asthma was that people's houses were too clean nowadays and the kids were not going outside so much, so they were not building up their immune systems like they used to. It's not like the Anti-Smoking brigade don't jump on whatever band-wagon whenever it suits their agenda though.
 
As a vaper (e-cigarette user) I tend to get it in the neck from both sides, smokers wanna laugh at me because they think I'm 'smoking a fake cigarette' (as if the only reason they smoke is not for the nicotine or the sensation which i get as well, but because they like the danger or something) and I get the old "OMG, he's smoking inside/If it looks like a duck" comments from some non-smokers.

That aside, whilst I support a ban on smoking in public buildings generally, I do think a compromise could have been made with pubs. Not let them choose as some suggest (as this was the case before the ban when you think about it, no pub was forced to allow smoking but most chose to), but if a pub has a spare room with decent ventilation they should be allowed to have 'smoking rooms'.
 
There may or may not be provable causation in the reduction of incidences of serious asthma and the smoking ban but one thing I think that people should be able to agree on is that the reduction is extremely welcome irrespective of the cause. Logically speaking it doesn't seem a huge leap to link a reduction in air pollution to a reduction in asthmatics but if it's merely a coincidental side-effect then it's a good one.

I have little doubt that the causes of asthma are more complicated than purely smoking related but if banning smoking in public places helps then I think we can call that a definite bonus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom