MedWire News: Teenagers are less likely to experiment with cigarettes if their parents ban smoking in the family home, study results show.

"This basic intervention - implementing a household smoking ban - has the potential to promote antismoking norms and to prevent adolescent smoking," said lead researcher Dr Alison Albers, from Boston University School of Public Health in Massachusetts, USA.

To investigate the effects of smoking bans in the home on the attitudes of teenagers towards smoking, Dr Albers and team interviewed 2217 adolescents, aged between 12 and 17 years, and monitored them for 4 years.

The researchers found that teenagers who lived in households that did not ban smoking were significantly more likely to view smoking as a socially acceptable habit than those with parents who banned smoking at home.

Among teenagers with nonsmoking parents, those who lived in homes without a smoking ban were 1.9 times more likely to experiment with cigarettes than teenagers who lived in homes without a ban.

Teenagers with parents who allowed smoking at home also tended to believe that a higher percentage of adults in their town smoked, compared with those living with parents who banned smoking.

Writing in the American Journal of Public Health, Dr Albers and team conclude: "Home smoking bans may promote antismoking attitudes among youths and reduce progression to smoking experimentation among youths who live with nonsmokers."

Commenting on the findings, Dr Mary Hrywna, from New Jersey School of Public Health in New Brunswick, USA, who was not involved with the study, added. "These bans send a strong message to teens that it's not okay to smoke, and in the face of so many other external factors that may influence teens to smoke - peers, advertising - a home smoking policy is one thing that parents can control to some extent."

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