Exposure to secondhand smoke in Finnish workplaces and compliance with national smoke-free workplace legislation

Abstract

Totally smoke-free workplaces give better protection against the exposure to SHS than workplaces with designated smoking areas. We urge a law reform that does not allow any designated smoking rooms indoors. In the prevention of SHS exposure, special attention should be directed to small workplaces.

Persistence of socioeconomic differences in adolescents’ environmental tobacco smoke exposure in Finland: 1991–2009

“…As could be expected in line with the results of earlier studies [11–19], clear socioeconomic differences in adolescents’ ETS exposure were found in favour of those with higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Despite studies have found this association, little is known about the potential pathway accounting for these relationships; and it still remains largely without explanation by this study, too.…”

“…In 2000, smoking in restaurants and bars was partially restricted and from june 2007 onwards, smoking has been prohibited in all bars and restaurants. Following the national smokefree legislation, population exposure to ETS has declined and smoking rates have reduced [11][12][13].…”

“…Previous research has found considerable socioeconomic disparities in children's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. A nationally representative cross-sectional study conducted in the uSA [18] demonstrated that exposure to ETS was significantly more likely among children from lowincome and low-educational households than among children living in high-income and high-educational households.…”

Twenty-five year trends in prevalence of chronic bronchitis and the trends in relation to smoking

“…However, in our results there can be left some residual confounding of smoking because we used cross-sectional survey data and smoking habits were asked only once. In addition, we could not take into account that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has decreased markedly in Finland from the 1980s' because of legislative smoking restrictions [25], reinforced later with smoke-free workplace legislation [26]. The ETS exposure at work has been more common in smokers than in nonsmokers, but it has decreased among smokers too and slightly also at home [25].…”

The relation of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) to chronic bronchitis and mortality over two decades

“…With the reduction in smoking prevalence and policies to restrict smoking in public places ETS exposure has been decreasing both in Europe and in the United States [17,25]. In Finland, the first law to restrict smoking was put into operation in 1977 [26], and since the 1980s' ETS exposure has decreased significantly [5]. The influence of enforcements of the tobacco laws restricting smoking at worksites in 1995 and banning of smoking in bars and restaurants in 2007 [27] can be seen also in this study as clear decreases in exposure to ETS between 1992 and 1995 and between 2007 and 2012.…”