A population survey in Ontario regarding restrictive measures on smoking: relationship of smoking status to knowledge, attitudes and predicted behaviour.

A population survey of Ontario residents regarding knowledge of the health effects of smoking, attitudes towards restrictive measures, and predicted behaviour was carried out. Telephone responses of 490 current, 290 former, and 581 never smokers were compared. For both active and passive smoking, never smokers were most knowledgeable about health effects, former smokers being less knowledgeable, and current smokers least so. While a majority of each smoking status group supported some restriction on smoking in all 13 settings examined, there were consistent differences among the groups as to degree. Never and former smokers were in close agreement and were more restrictive in their attitudes than current smokers. Prohibition was more strongly favoured by all groups for health and day care facilities, schools, stores, and local transit systems than for other settings. While a majority of smokers thought there would be compliance with restrictions, non-smokers were less optimistic. Smokers were less likely than non-smokers to see a role for governments in enactment; municipal involvement was favoured over other levels by all groups. No group indicated much support for enforcement by police. These findings remained when multivariate analyses controlling for inter-group differences in sociodemographic characteristics were carried out.