, 2013). Comprehensive smoke-free policies have high levels of public support and have been associated with substantial health benefits (Fong et al., 2006, International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2009 and Tang et al., 2003). These include reduced tobacco consumption and increased quit attempts, the virtual elimination of SHS from workplaces, lower hospital admission rates for myocardial infarction and stroke, lower admissions Idelalisib manufacturer for acute respiratory illness in both children and adults (Millett et al.,

2013 and Tan and Glantz, 2012), and lower rates of small for gestational age births (Kabir et al., 2013). However, these health benefits are not equitably distributed as only 16% of the world’s population are covered by comprehensive smoke-free policies (World Health Organization, 2013b). Research evidence suggests that smoke-free workplace policies may change social norms about exposing others to SHS in the home (Berg et al., 2012, Cheng et al., 2011, Fong et al., 2006 and St. Claire et al., 2012). These findings indicate that early concerns that smoke-free workplace policies would lead to behavioural compensation

through an increase in smoking at home have not materialized; rather, results from richer countries ( Berg et al., 2012, Cheng et al., 2011 and St. Claire et al., 2012) and India ( Lee et al., 2013) have consistently found that people employed in a smoke-free workplace are more likely to live in a smoke-free home. Replication of this finding in other LMICs would indicate that implementation of find more nearly smoke-free policies in these settings will likely result in substantial reductions in tobacco related harm

globally. This study examines whether there is an association between being employed in a smoke-free workplace and living in a smoke-free home in 15 LMICs participating in GATS between 2008 and 2011. This study involved secondary analysis of GATS data from 15 LMICs. GATS is a nationally representative cross-sectional household survey of non-institutionalized adults aged 15 years and over (World Health Organization, 2013c). It is considered to be the global standard for monitoring adult tobacco use and key tobacco control indicators. GATS employs standardized survey methodology with a few country-specific variations in the questionnaire, and is designed to collect household as well as individual level data. Multi-stage cluster sampling design is employed in GATS to select a nationally representative study sample. Between 2008 and 2011, the first round of GATS was implemented in 17 LMICs in five WHO regions (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013a). Country-specific, anonymous GATS data for 15 of the 17 LMICs (all but Indonesia and Malaysia) was freely available from the CDC GTSS Data website, which was used for secondary data analysis.