Henry Ford Hospital researchers say it is time for a nationwide public smoking ban. Such a measure would reduce public health care costs by $90 million and significantly reduce hospitalization due to heart attack each year.
Their study was presented today at the American Heart Association's annual Quality of Care and Outcomes Research conference in Washington.
After analyzing data from the 13 states that don't have a law banning smoking in public places, researchers concluded that more than 18,596 fewer hospitalizations for heart attack could be realized from a smoking ban in all 50 states after the first year of implementation, resulting in more than $92 million in savings in hospitals costs for caring for those patients.
Henry Ford obtained 2007 data on the number of heart attack discharges, length of stay and hospital charges from the 13 states currently without a public smoking ban. Researchers found 169,043 hospitalizations for heart attack were reported in the states with a comprehensive smoking ban. When the same 11 percent risk reduction was applied to the non-smoking states, researchers concluded it would led to 18,596 fewer heart attack admissions.
"Even if you just save one heart attack, it is something significant," says Mouaz Al-Mallah, M.D., Henry Ford's co-director of Cardiac Imaging Reearch and lead author of the study. "When people smoke, they are not only harming themselves, they're harming those around them who are exposed to secondhand smoke."
