Abstract

Objective: to assess the national level of compliance with the Chilean comprehensive smoke-free legislation by observing smoking in violation of the law, by type of area within workplaces and public places: enclosed, semi-open and open. Methodology: In this cross-sectional observational study, we studied a national repre-sentative sample of venues in the same seven sectors as the WHO report on the global epidemic. A sample of 3,986 venues was obtained through a two-stage cluster sam-pling design. We determined the noncompliance level by estimating the percentage of the visited venues where smoking was observed in banned areas of the premises, which include all enclosed and semi-open areas of all venues and also the open areas of health, primary and secondary level educational venues. Results: smoking was not observed in any enclosed area of any establishment. Howev-er, smoking violations were observed in the semi-open areas ranging from less than 0.5% of schools and health care centers, to around 10% of hospitality venues or 23.0% of higher education centers. Discussion: The stark contrast in compliance with the smoking ban between the en-closed areas and the semi-open areas may be a consequence of the complex and un-clear definition of semi-open areas in the regulations. The study also reflects the need to improve the enforcement of the smoke-free law in Universities and hospitality ven-ues.