A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public
Health finds that children and adolescents who don’t live with
smokers experience substantial health benefits from no smoking
laws. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers also found that
kids who live in counties with public smoking bans but are
exposed to secondhand smoke at home experience no similar
benefit. The study, which will appear in the July issue of the
journal Pediatrics, analyzed data on secondhand smoke exposure
among more than 11,000 children between the ages of 3 to 19 who
did not smoke themselves. Smoke exposure was measured by
analyzing levels of cotinine — a byproduct of nicotine that is
indicative of secondhand smoke exposure — in blood samples. This
information was compared with regional smoking ban data from
participants’ 117 home counties, as well as whether or not
children lived with any smokers. Researchers found that kids who
didn’t live with smokers and resided in counties with anti-
smoking laws had nearly 40% lower