Hospital Discharge Rates Before and After Implementation of a City-wide Smoking Ban in a Texas City, 2004–2008

The objective of this study was to examine hospital discharge data on 5 tobacco-related diagnoses before and after implementation of a smoking ban in a small Texas city. We compared hospital discharge rates for 2 years before and 2 years after implementation of the ban in the intervention city with discharge rates during the same time in a similar city with no ban. The discharge rates for blacks and whites combined declined significantly after the ban in the intervention city for acute myocardial infarction (MI) (rate ratio [RR], 0.74; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65–0.85) and for stroke or cerebrovascular accident (RR, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.62–0.82); discharge rates in the intervention city also declined significantly for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (RR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.54–0.75) and asthma (RR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.52–0.91) for whites only. Discharge rates for 4 of 5 diagnoses in the control city did not change. Although postban reduction in acute MI is well documented, this is one of the first studies to show a racial disparity in health benefits and a decline in tobacco-related diagnoses other than acute MI after implementation of a city-wide smoking ban.