A new Joint Commission report published in the journal Tobacco Control suggests that an estimated 60 percent of U.S. hospitals will have smoke-free campuses by the end of the year, AHA News Now reports. Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Substance Abuse Policy and Research Program and the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute, researchers from the Joint Commission and Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System's Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention surveyed 1,916 Joint Commission-accredited hospitals on their current smoking policies and future plans. The researchers found that, while only 3 percent of hospitals adopted a smoke-free campus in 1992, when the Joint Commission introduced standards requiring accredited hospitals to prohibit smoking within the hospital, more than 45 percent had made their campuses smoke-free by February 2008. Another 15 percent of hospitals were actively taking steps to become smoke-free campus-wide. According to the study, non-teaching and non-profit hospitals were more likely to have smoke-free campuses by February 2008, and private, non-profit facilities were three times more likely than for-profits to have adopted smoke-free campus policies. The researchers found little relationship, however, between smoke-free hospital campuses and the rate at which hospitals provided smoking-cessation counseling across all patient populations, although hospitals with smoke-free campuses were more likely to provide counseling to patients with acute myocardial infarction, heart failure and pneumonia. Noting that the study presents the "first systematic evaluation of hospitals" on the issue of smoke-free campuses, the associate director of the Joint Commission's Department of Health Services Research adds that, "from a public health perspective, the benefits of stricter anti-smoking policies are well established." Specifically, the report cites statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that indirect and direct costs stemming from smoking-related illnesses total approximately $193 billion annually and that cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. In addition, cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke result in roughly $96.8 billion in annual productivity losses for the nation (AHA News Now, 8/20/09; Zigmond, Modern Healthcare, 8/20/09 [subscription required]; Joint Commission release, 8/20/09; Williams et al., Tobacco Control, 8/20/09 [subscription required]).