New research from ASPIRE2025 researchers found some progress but many problems with the outdoor smokefree policies of the sample of NZ councils studied.
One mechanism to make progress towards reducing the enormous health burden from tobacco smoking is to expand smokefree public areas. For many high-income countries, this now means an increased focus on outdoor public settings, where smokefree policies are much less common than for indoor public settings. Such policies are intended to reduce the exposure of workers and the public to tobacco-smoke pollution and contribute to the denormalisation of smoking by reducing its visibility.