Background: The aim of this study was to analyze the impact on tobacco consumption among working population of the Law 42/2010, which amends smoking regulations in Spain.
Methods: Data were obtained from 413,473 Occupational Health check-ups, conducted between July of 2009 and June of 2011, in the Society for Prevention of a Mutual Insurance Company. We analyzed changes in the biannual percentage of smokers and the magnitude of tobacco consumption among smokers in the overall set of medical check-ups, by gender, age, occupational level (manual vs. non-manual workers), and in the specific occupational subgroup of waiters, barmen and similar workers (chi-square test).
Results: In the overall set of medical check-ups, the percentage of smokers decreased by 5% (from 40.3% to 35.3%) over the period of study (p <0.001) and the group of smokers with lower daily consumption (< 10 cigarettes) became the most frequent (p <0.001). In the group of waiters, barmen and similar workers the differences in the biannual percentage of smokers did not reach statistical significance (p =0.07). In this group, smokers of < 10 cigarretes/ day also became the most common consumption group (increasing from 40.5% to 48.8%) and the percentage of 21-40 cigarretes/day decreased from 10.6% to 4% (p =0.008).
Conclusions: These results suggest that the new regulation has been accompanied by a significant reduction in smoking among Spanish workers and strongly support population-level measures against tobacco consumption.