The federal government ordered all public housing to be smoke-free in 2018. Old Dominion University researchers wanted to find out if the policy was working.
They set up more than 100 air quality monitors across 12 public housing buildings in Norfolk, Hampton, Suffolk, Newport News and Portsmouth in 2023. The monitors collected data every other minute, measuring the presence of particles smaller than a speck of dust, said Brynn Sheehan, who co-led the study.
“Because they're so small, they can travel deep into the lungs and affect our health,” said Sheehan, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at ODU’s Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences.
The particles, called PM2.5 , can come from cooking, candles, fireplaces and environmental conditions like traffic pollution and wildfires. They’re often used as a proxy for tobacco and cigarette smoke, said Kelli England, a professor of pediatrics at ODU’s Macon & Joan Brock Virginia Health Sciences and Sheehan’s co-lead on the study.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development adopted its no smoking policy eight years ago to improve indoor air quality and reduce secondhand smoke exposure for residents and staff.
England said she expected the data to reveal a mixed bag.
“There would be some with higher and some with a lower air quality, and therefore, we could then look at differences among the buildings and try to find out what are some of the possible reasons for the differences,” England said.
Instead, the results showed consistently poor air quality across all public housing buildings, according to the study, which was published last May. The results were even more surprising after learning the region’s outdoor air is rated highly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Sheehan.
“It's one thing if (the contaminant level) spikes a little bit while you're cooking, or if it's every once in a while it goes like that,” England said. “But this is nonstop.”
The housing authorities in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News and Hampton declined to comment when reached by WHRO. The Suffolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority responded through Andrea Dunlap, an attorney at the law firm Crenshaw, Ware & Martin, P.L.C., which represents the city’s housing authority.
“SRHA is reviewing the recently published study as part of its ongoing efforts to support residents’ health and well-being,” Dunlap wrote in an email. “The study measured particulate matter in shared hallways and common areas, not inside individual apartments, and did not identify the source of the measured particulate matter or establish that it was caused by smoking.”
Dunlap said the requirement for people to smoke 25 feet away from the buildings is included in residents’ leases. When the policy is violated, she wrote the housing authority may give notice of the violation and require resident education.
Sheehan said residents in focus groups described feeling they had to choose between their safety and complying with the no smoking policy.
“Many of our residents spoke very openly about the safety concerns around the communities, how having to walk 25 feet away from the building in many, if not all, of these neighborhoods is a very unsafe place to be,” Sheehan said.
Many residents told researchers covered and well-lit designated smoking areas near public housing would help.
