Project report
The Impact of Tobacco-Free School Laws on Student and Staff Smoking Behavior
Rachana R. Bhatt, Peter L. Hinrichs ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5The report looks at U.S. state laws that ban tobacco use by students, staff and visitors on all public school grounds. The laws aim to cut tobacco use, reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, reinforce anti-tobacco teaching and stop children from seeing adults and peers use tobacco. The authors compare states that adopted the laws at different times, using a stacked difference-in-differences method. They conclude that statewide school smoking bans have little effect on the smoking behaviour of students, teachers and other school staff.
Key points
- Several U.S. states have banned tobacco use on public elementary and secondary school grounds statewide.
- The laws aim to reduce tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure, reinforce anti-tobacco curricula and limit children seeing tobacco use.
- The study uses stacked difference-in-differences estimators that exploit differences in when states adopted the laws.
- The results suggest statewide school smoking bans have little impact on smoking behaviour.
Limitations
Only the abstract is available, so we cannot see the data sources, sample sizes, effect sizes or any differences between groups or states. The theme list has no category for tobacco or substance use, so no theme is assigned.
Abstract
A number of U.S. states have enacted bans on tobacco use by students, staff, and visitors anywhere on the grounds of public elementary and secondary schools statewide. These laws are intended to reduce tobacco use, reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, reinforce anti-tobacco curricula taught in schools, and prevent children from viewing their teachers and fellow students using tobacco products. We examine the impact that the laws have on the smoking behavior of students, teachers, and other school staff by using stacked difference-in-differences estimators that exploit the time variation in adoption of the laws across states. The results presented in this paper suggest that statewide school smoking bans have little impact on smoking behavior.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Statewide laws banning tobacco use by students, staff and visitors anywhere on public school grounds
- Population
- Students, teachers and other school staff in U.S. states that did and did not adopt statewide school tobacco bans
Key finding
Statewide school smoking bans were found to have little impact on smoking behaviour.
Bhatt et al. · OpenAlex - Early Childhood · 5 Oct 2026