Monday 21 January 2013

Because as we know, children spend a lot of time in pubs

Some totally bizarre statistics rehashed by the BBC:

There was a sharp fall in the number of children admitted to hospital with severe asthma after smoke-free legislation was introduced in England, say researchers. A study showed a 12% drop in the first year after the law to stop smoking in enclosed public places came into force...

The reliability of this estimate is somewhat cast into doubt by this bit:

Presenting their findings in the journal Paediatrics, they said the number of children admitted to hospital with severe asthma attacks was rising by more than 2% a year before the restrictions were introduced in July 2007.

Taking that into account, they calculated the fall in admissions in the next 12 months was 12%, and a further 3% in each of the following two years. They say over the three-year period, this was equivalent of about 6,800 admissions.

The fall was seen among boys and girls of all ages, across wealthy and deprived neighbourhoods, in cities and in rural areas.


So what they appear to be doing is comparing current admissions with an imaginary rising trendline, rather than current admissions with pre-2007 admissions. Velvet Glove Iron Fist is the expert debunking all these statistical and epidemiological sleights of hand, so hopefully he'll have a crack.

But what strikes me is that the whole thing overlooks the important fact that by the time of the smoking ban in 2007, nearly ever public building except pubs and restaurants already had a smoking ban in place, and you hardly see children in pubs. Targetted children's restaurants like McDonald's or Pizza Hut banned smoking donkey's years ago anyway.

So the actual, official 2007 smoking ban will have made bugger all difference to the amount of "second hand smoke" to which children were "exposed".

10 comments:

Xopher said...

Children spent rather more time in their school rather than the parents workplace so the workplace ban could not have affected asthma rates. The smoking ban did however encourage smokers out of the pub and into their own homes. ----- It's obvious, any fall in asthma admissions must be due to a greater exposure to smoke in the home.

Mark Wadsworth said...

X: "any fall in asthma admissions must be due to a greater exposure to smoke in the home."

That's quite possibly true, but by and large, the "workplace ban" was already voluntarily in place in 90% of shops and offices and cinemas and buses and so on. The last time I was allowed to smoke in the office was over ten years ago.

DBC Reed said...

@MW As a non-smoker I feel you are missing a trick here:smokers should welcome these (phony) figures, saying keep all the wicked smokers in pubs away from the innocent chilren.Would not be pleased to be stuck back in smoky pubs again with all the smoking low-lifes but better that than pubs closing IMO.

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, if I may paraphrase:

"Would be pleased to be back in smoky pubs again, even with all the non-smoking low-lifes"

proglodyte said...

@Zopher. They would of course counter that argument by claiming that more smokers only smoke outside their homes because they are fully aware that SHS is toxic (hence the ban in workplaces). It's all utter bullshit of course - for a start asthma was not as common before Tobacco Control really started wielding the stick. By applying their standards of scientific integrity one could even argue that they are partly responsible. The same could be said for many infectious diseases. For example, in smoke free hospitals.

proglodyte said...

Correction...Xopher

Tim Almond said...

This chart from Bolton (http://www.boltonshealthmatters.org/sites/default/files/Child%20asthma%20admissions.pdf) shows the figures for England (as a blue line on each chart).

The people who have written this are either dreadful at analysis, or are just liars.

The figure for 2009-2010 is worse than the one for 2002-2003. 2008/2009 was higher than 2005/2006.

But you can see the stunt they pulled. 2006/2007 was freakishly high, so it then fell 12% to the following year, and the figure from 2006/2007 to today has fallen.

And most of the media just printed it.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TS, good link, but you are missing the point, which is that admissions are 12% below the imaginary trendline you would get by extrapolating from 2006-07 onwards at increases of 2% a year.

Hardly surprising really, that admissions are 12% less than what they would be if they were 6 x 2% higher, but there you go.

DBC Reed said...

As a low-life myself I am happy to share the company of smoking and non-smoking low-lifes alike but the point I'm trying to make is that for the general public good of keeping pubs going ,smokers should start arguing that they should be encouraged to sit in pubs for as long as possible to keep the children uncontaminated.A major reduction in the price of intoxicating liquors would seem appropriate,one of Henry George's lesser known but most convincing arguments .(He thought the licensing laws tended to put up consumption and prices!)

Ian Hills said...

Now I know where Orwell got the idea of the "Junior Anti-Sex League" from for his novel, 1984. He once worked for the pleasure-hating BBC.