A public-smoking ban in Australia has led more parents to smoke at home, raising health risks for kids, researchers say.

The Medical Post reported April 4 that research from the Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences concluded that "bans in recreational public places can perversely increase tobacco exposure of nonsmokers ... Children seem to be particularly affected. The level of cotinine (a nicotine byproduct measurable in saliva) in children considerably increases as a result of bans in public places."

Public smoking bans tend to "displace smokers to private places where they contaminate nonsmokers," said authors Jerome Adda, Ph.D., and Francesca Cornaglia, Ph.D., visiting scholars from University College London.