Casino smoke can be deadly for workers.Pennsylvania casino workers face a higher risk of death due to secondhand cigarette smoke than do workers involved in mining disasters, an August AJPH AJPH American Journal of Public Health AJPh American Journal of Philology study found. In monitoring secondhand smoke sec·ond·hand smoke n. Cigarette, cigar, or pipe smoke that is inhaled unintentionally by nonsmokers and may be injurious to their health if inhaled regularly over a long period. Also called passive smoke. exposure in three Pennsylvania casinos, study author James Repace, MSc, of the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Boston's Tufts University School of Medicine The Tufts University School of Medicine is one of the eight schools that comprise Tufts University. Located on the university's health sciences campus in the Chinatown district of Boston, Massachusetts, the medical school has clinical affiliations with thousands of doctors and , found that the concentration of some airborne smoking-related particles was four times to six times higher inside the casinos than outside, even though the casinos had "generous ventilation and low smoking prevalence." The study also found that secondhand smoke traveled into casinos' nonsmoking non·smok·ing adj. 1. Not engaging in the smoking of tobacco: nonsmoking passengers. 2. Designated or reserved for nonsmokers: the nonsmoking section of a restaurant. areas, and that the concentration of cotinine--a byproduct of nicotine--in patrons' urine increased after a four-hour visit to one of the casinos studied. According to the study, 16 Pennsylvania miners died in 15 disasters from 1995 to 2002--a rate of 1.2 deaths per 10,000 workers annually. However, the estimated rate of casino worker deaths per year from secondhand smoke is about five times the death rate for Pennsylvania miners caught in a coal mine disaster. Repace, who is an APHA member, noted that only eight of 23 states, including Puerto Rico, have smoke-free casinos. "Pennsylvania casino workers and patrons are put at significant excess risk of heart disease and lung cancer lung cancer, cancer that originates in the tissues of the lungs. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States in both men and women. Like other cancers, lung cancer occurs after repeated insults to the genetic material of the cell. from (secondhand smoke) through a failure to include casinos in the state's smoke-free workplace smoke-free workplace Labor law A workplace where use of cigarettes and other tobacco smoke products–cigars, pipes, is not allowed indoors law," Repace wrote. (Page 1,478) |
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