[Workplace health promotion interventions: ongoing projects and evaluation of their effectiveness].

Background: The Italian law of January 2005 that banned smoking in enclosed public places, also banned smoking in the workplace.

Results: This law led to the elimination of exposure to passive smoking for non-smokers, more smokers who gave up smoking, and a fall in the number of cigarettes smoked per day among smokers. Enforcement of the ban needs to be strengthened in discotheques and at the workplace and in outdoor smoking premises. In covered outdoor areas set up for smokers in winter, passive smoking exposure is high.

Discussion: A Cochrane review conducted in 2005 on workplace smoking bans did not conclude that bans helped employees to quit, while another review found that totally smoke-free workplaces are associated with a 3.8% reduction in smoking prevalence, and 3.1 fewer cigarettes smoked per person per day.

Conclusions: Workplaces are ideal settings for health promotion, since it is feasible to organize individual interventions, such as counselling, combined with environmental measures (e.g., smoking bans) in order to support behavioural changes in employees. It is difficult to evaluate these complex interventions using standard evaluation methods such as cluster randomized controlled trials. We describe two workplace interventions conducted in Tuscany based on methods described by Sorensen.