Environmental tobacco smoke exposure among waiters: measurement of expired carbon monoxide levels

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Environmental tobacco smoke exposure among waiters: measurement of expired carbon monoxide levels
ARTIGO ORIGINAL

Ronaldo Laranjeira;Sandra Cristina Pillon;John Dunn

Contexto: O ambiente exposto a fumaça do cigarro trazem graves riscos a saúde e preocupam tanto os empregadores quanto empregados de restaurantes e bares. No entanto, os fumantes passivos correm risco elevados de desenvolverem doenças cancerígenas, pulmonares e cardíacas. Baseados nestes parâmetros e na experiência de países que sancionaram leis que proíbem fumar ou restringem o fumar em áreas restritas e antes de sancionar leis municipais na cidade de São Paulo dá – se a importância de realizar este estudo.
Objective – To assess environmental tobacco smoke exposure (using expired carbon monoxide (CO) levels) in non-smoking waiters before and after a normal day’s shift and to compare pre-exposure levels with non-smoking medical students.
Design – An observational study.
Setting – Restaurants with more than 50 tables or 100 places in São Paulo.
Subjects – 100 non-smoking restaurant waiters and 100 non-smoking medical students in São Paulo, Brazil.
Main outcome measure – Levels of expired CO, measured with a Smokerlyser (Bedfont EC 50 Scientific), before and after a normal day’s work.
Results – Waiters’ pre-exposure expired CO levels were similar to those of medical students, but after a mean of 9 hours exposure in the workplace, median levels more than doubled (2.0ppm vs 5.0ppm, p<0.001). Post-exposure CO levels were correlated with the number of tables available for smokers (Kendall’s tau=0.2 ,p<0.0001).
Conclusions – Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is the most likely explanation for the increase in CO levels among these non-smoking waiters. These findings can be used to inform the on-going public health debate on passive smoking.