ANR UPDATE 23(2), Summer 2004
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued a strong warning for nonsmokers at risk for heart disease: avoid all indoor places where tobacco smoking occurs. Tobacco smoke, according to health experts, has a “non-linear dose response,” meaning that significant short-term damage to the cardiovascular system, especially risk of heart attack, can occur even at very low levels of exposure.
This CDC warning appeared in the April 2004 British Medical Journal that also included a peer-reviewed study showing a 40% decline in heart attacks after a smokefree law went into effect in Helena, MT.
As the smokefree workplace movement continues to grow in the U.S., we can reflect on the many accomplishments to date. Over 32% of the U.S. population lives in an area protected by a strong smokefree workplace law. Airlines, thanks to ANR members and friends, are now smokefree, and many employers have voluntarily adopted smokefree policies due to strong public demand and even more detailed scientific information about the health hazards caused by tobacco smoke.
According to the CDC, nonsmokers’ exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke declined nearly 80% between 1994 and 2002 as scientifically shown by measuring people’s cotinine levels (the metabolic residue from nicotine exposure measured in urine or blood samples). This is a huge victory for public health.
However, nearly 70% of the population still doesn’t have the right to breathe smokefree air in enclosed workplaces and public places. A new study in the April edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, “Disparities in Smoke-free Workplace Policies Among Food Service Workers,” ranked 38 major occupations on the basis of protection from secondhand smoke exposure through smokefree policies and found that food-service workers have the highest occupational exposure to secondhand smoke.
Food service is the fourth largest occupation in the U.S., and the sector is growing. Millions of service workers are unnecessarily exposed to secondhand smoke.
The study’s authors include ANR Board Member Donald R Shopland, formerly of the U.S. Public Health Service; Christy Anderson and Dr. David Burns of the University of California, San Diego; and Dr. Karen Gerlach of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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