PUTTING free smoke alarms in poor households does not save lives.
Ian Roberts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues gave free smoke alarms to 19,950 houses in deprived areas of London. But this did not reduce the number of injuries or deaths from fires (British Medical Journal, vol 325, p 995). Follow-up visits suggested this was because few alarms had been installed or properly maintained.
But this is not because of laziness, says Roberts. He thinks that because urban houses are smaller, alarms are often triggered by smoke from cooking or cigarettes, so…
