Smoke-Free Law Compliance Observations Across 219 Public Places in Rural Nepal, May 2025

219 public places across six wards in Purbakhola Rural Municipality, Palpa, Nepal, were observed for compliance with smoke-free laws from May 7 to May 16, 2025. The dataset, created by Bhakta Bahadur KC and shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license, measures compliance using six indicators including active smoking, signage, and ashtray presence. Compliance was high in institutional settings like health facilities (100.0%) but low in the hospitality sector, with only 45.0% of restaurants free from indoor smoking.

Use Cases

• Analyzing predictors of smoking behavior based on environmental cues like ashtray presence.
• Comparing compliance rates across different types of public places, such as health facilities versus restaurants.
• Evaluating the effectiveness of no-smoking signage as a deterrent based on observational data.
• Assessing geographic implementation gaps in tobacco control laws within a specific rural municipality.

Strengths

• Data covers 219 public places across all six wards of a defined rural municipality.
• Compliance assessed using six specific, named observational indicators.
• Findings include precise compliance percentages, such as 100.0% for health facilities and 45.0% for restaurants.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, requiring manual inspection after download.
• The dataset's 5.5 KB size indicates a very limited scope, covering only one municipality over a short period.
• Data may reflect geographic bias specific to Purbakhola Rural Municipality, Palpa, Nepal.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Cross-sectional observational survey using an adapted checklist.

Time Range

Observations conducted from May 7 to May 16, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-11 17:38:07; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Purbakhola Rural Municipality, Palpa, Nepal.