The Netherlands: Public Smoke-free Environments

In the Netherlands, there has been significant increase of smoke-free environments, mostly at schoolyards, playgrounds, sports facilities, bus stops and municipal institutions. In the municipalities of Utrecht and Nieuwegein for example, 831 bus stops are now smoke-free.

In a two-year program, 90% of the Dutch municipalities started policy and actions to ban smoking from public places, as part of the National Prevention Agreement. Other results have seen integrated plans for smoking cessation care and accessible stop smoking service. e.g., in GGD Fryslân the number of registrations for smoking cessation care increased dramatically. Working from a national focus towards a smoke-free environment, while considering local differences and needs, has been crucial to this programme’s’ success.

You can read how GGD GHOR approached the project in this fact sheet: https://mcusercontent.com/7d6351a339e0759bbf1ca6cea/files/21aff37d-f583-2182-be01-bccb8bb39cc3/EUPHA_factsheet_Rookvrije_Omgeving_10112022.pdf

The written abstract was published in the European Journal for Public Health, available at https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/32/Supplement_3/ckac129.035/6765607