Second-Hand Smoke

The purpose of the study is to examine the ways in which business organizations have responded to concerns regarding the ill-effects of second-hand smoke in the workplace. Specifically, the purpose of the study is to determine how business managers perceive the problem of second-hand smoke and how they and their organizations have responded to this health concern. It has been theorized that employees who breathe in their co-workers' cigarette smoke are significantly more at risk for the development of negative health conditions and significantly more likely to take sick leave than workers who are not exposed to workplace tobacco smoke (Second-hand smoke..., 2000).

Numerous epidemiological studies undertaken since 1982 purport to show an association between passive or involuntary smoking and disease. Davis (1997) states that studies have demonstrated a relationship between passive smoking and 3,000 annual deaths from lung cancer and between 35,000 and 62,000 deaths from heart disease. Other studies indicate that passive smoking plays a role in cases of bronchitis and pneumonia, asthma, middle ear infection, and low birth weight as well as sudden infant death among children (Davis, 1997).

At the same time, there is evidence that these epidemiological studies, which have led to strict regulation of workplace smoking by government agencies and private sector firms alike, may have been either flawed methodol

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wever, the long-established conventional wisdom - and many within the medical and scientific research communities agree with this view - is that ETS, second-hand smoke, or passive smoking are definitively linked as causal agents to increased risk of nonsmokers' developing lung cancer, heart and respiratory diseases or infections, and a host of other health problems (Bradbury, 1999; Davis, 1997; Josefson, 1997). Davis (1997) stated that Josefson (1997) reported on a study conducted under the aegis of the Harvard School of Public Health that followed 32,046 healthy, non-smoking women enrolled in a nurses' health study for a period of 10 years. The ETS portion of this longitudinal study began in 1982 and asked participants ages 36 to 61 to complete questionnaires indicating exposure to ETS at home and at work. During the 10-year study, 152 cases of cardiac disease and 7 heart attacks occurred among the subjects, 25 of which were fatal. Healthy, non-smoking women who reported that they were regularly espoused to ETS either at home or at work had a 91 percent greater relative risk of heart attack than those who had minimal or occasional exposure (a 58 percent greater relative risk than no exposure). While these data are compellin

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