TY - JOUR
T1 - Bar and restaurant workers' attitudes towards norway's comprehensive smoking ban
T2 - A growth curve analysis
AU - Braverman, Marc T.
AU - Aar̈, Leif Edvard
AU - Bontempo, Daniel E.
AU - Hetland, J̈rn
PY - 2010/6
Y1 - 2010/6
N2 - Background: Norway passed legislation banning smoking in restaurants, bars and other public spaces in 2004. This study tracks changes in hospitality workers' attitudes towards Norway's ban over three time points, using growth modelling analysis to examine predictors of attitude change. Methods: Participants were a national sample of 1525 bar and restaurant workers. Surveys were conducted, by phone or internet, one month before the ban's implementation and at 4 and 12 months thereafter. Exploratory principal components analysis of nine survey items revealed one primary attitude component. A latent growth model was fitted to the data to examine trajectories of attitude change and individual differences in rate of change. Results: Respondents supported the ban before implementation and increased support at 4 months (p1=40.021) and again at 12 months (p1=40.001). Concern for one's job followed a quadratic trend, increasing at 4 months and decreasing at 12 months (p<0.001). All demographic categories were associated with attitude increase; rate of increase was greater for females than males. Two within-person variablesdchange in smoking status and change in job concerndstrongly predicted (p<0.001) respondents' deviations from their predicted group trajectories, explaining over 70% of residual between-person slope variance. Conclusions: Norway's hospitality workers increased their support of the ban over its first year. The strong influence of the within-person variables leads to two primary policy recommendations. First, support should be provided to assist cessation efforts and prevent relapse. Second, informational campaigns should inform hospitality workers about evidence that smoking bans are not economic threats to the industry.
AB - Background: Norway passed legislation banning smoking in restaurants, bars and other public spaces in 2004. This study tracks changes in hospitality workers' attitudes towards Norway's ban over three time points, using growth modelling analysis to examine predictors of attitude change. Methods: Participants were a national sample of 1525 bar and restaurant workers. Surveys were conducted, by phone or internet, one month before the ban's implementation and at 4 and 12 months thereafter. Exploratory principal components analysis of nine survey items revealed one primary attitude component. A latent growth model was fitted to the data to examine trajectories of attitude change and individual differences in rate of change. Results: Respondents supported the ban before implementation and increased support at 4 months (p1=40.021) and again at 12 months (p1=40.001). Concern for one's job followed a quadratic trend, increasing at 4 months and decreasing at 12 months (p<0.001). All demographic categories were associated with attitude increase; rate of increase was greater for females than males. Two within-person variablesdchange in smoking status and change in job concerndstrongly predicted (p<0.001) respondents' deviations from their predicted group trajectories, explaining over 70% of residual between-person slope variance. Conclusions: Norway's hospitality workers increased their support of the ban over its first year. The strong influence of the within-person variables leads to two primary policy recommendations. First, support should be provided to assist cessation efforts and prevent relapse. Second, informational campaigns should inform hospitality workers about evidence that smoking bans are not economic threats to the industry.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77955248163&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1136/tc.2009.033845
DO - 10.1136/tc.2009.033845
M3 - Article
C2 - 20501498
AN - SCOPUS:77955248163
SN - 0964-4563
VL - 19
SP - 240
EP - 247
JO - Tobacco Control
JF - Tobacco Control
IS - 3
ER -