The smoke-free hospital: A smoke-free worksite

Smoking begins as a social behavior and is continued as a response to addictive and social pressures. Reduction of smoking prevalence will require the replacement of a culture that accepts and encourages smoking with a culture that encourages smoke-free lifestyles and environments. It is possible that smoke-free worksites are an effective way to create and reinforce the concept of a smoke-free culture. Hospitals are labor intensive environments and, given their health-related mission, are one ideal starting point for the development of smoke-free worksites. The social sciences anthropology and sociology provide models of analysis that can be used to develop an understanding of why smoking in hospitals persists despite the known health hazards, and how the anachronistic policies can be changed. This paper reports insights about the movement to make hospitals smoke-free that may be useful to future policy makers.