Journal of Environmental and Public Health 5 Table 3: Estimated total reductions in hospital admissions for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and stroke attributed to implementa- tion of comprehensive smoke-free air laws. Tammy Johnson, and Theresa Hinman for dataset manip- ulation. This work was funded by the New York State Department of Health, Tobacco Control Program. Diagnosis AMI Stroke Percentage (95% CI) Number of age-adjusted cases Floridaa 18.4% (8.8%–28.0%) 32,425 (15,478–49,373) 18.1% (9.3%, 30.0%) 44,485 (22,745–66,224) (95% CI) New Yorkb 15.5% (11.0%–20.1%) 28,649 (20,292–37,006) NS Oregon NS NS NS: not signiﬁcant. aBetween Quarter 3 2003 and Quarter 4 2006. bBetween March 2003 and December 2006. improvements in air quality, and other factors. The secular time trends and area ﬁxed eﬀects in our models control for many of these eﬀects, but imperfectly. Because the data used are aggregated, county-level rates, we are unable to assess exposure to secondhand smoke among at-risk individuals or to diﬀerentiate between current smokers and nonsmokers. To the best of our knowledge, county-level data on secondhand smoke exposure or smoking rates among adults over time do not exist in any of the states considered in this paper. 5. Conclusions We provide evidence for signiﬁcant reductions in hospital admissions for stroke and AMI in Florida and signiﬁcant reductions in admissions for AMI in New York follow- ing implementation of comprehensive smoke-free air laws. These results are consistent with a growing body of literature suggesting a direct association between laws banning smok- ing in public places and improvements in public health. A great deal of progress has been made in the past 10 years in the adoption of comprehensive smoke-free air laws in the United States, but still only 48% of the U.S. population is currently covered [13]. Given the rapidly rising cost of health care and wide public support for smoke-free air laws, comprehensive smoking bans should be considered by all state and local governments as an eﬀective measure to improve health and reduce health care costs. Conﬂict of Interests The authors have no conﬂict of interests to disclose. Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge Quynh Nguyen and Asma Baig for research assistance, and Jamie Thompson, References [1] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), “The health consequences of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke: A report of the Surgeon General,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Coordinating Center for Health Promotion, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Oﬃce on Smoking and Health, Atlanta, Ga, USA, 2006. 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