NHS Choices 'Behind the Headlines' assessment: Smoking bans may help cut premature births

Source: NHS Choices Area: News The 'Behind the Headlines' service from NHS Choices has featured a quality assessment of a BBC News headline: "Smoking ban 'cuts premature births'" (February 15th 2013). The report was based on research published in the BMJ which looked at recorded premature birth trends in Belgium around the time of a public smoking ban there. Although this is not directly comparable to the bans in the UK countries, the assessment states that Belgium is a useful example to look at as they introduced public smoking bans in stages between 2006 and 2010.   The assessment discusses the research, its basic results and the authors conclusions, and what this means in practice. It notes that the introduction of a public smoking ban in Belgium was associated with a reduction in the rate of preterm births in the following years, but that it does not show a direct cause and effect (the change could possibly be due to the impact of unmeasured confounding variables and not the smoking ban itself). No ...
Source: NeLM - News - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: news