Airport smoking rooms don't work

Tob Control. 2004 Mar;13 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):i37-40. doi: 10.1136/tc.2003.005447.

Abstract

Objectives: To document tobacco industry involvement in thwarting enactment of a smoke-free airport policy at Lambert-St Louis International Airport (Lambert Airport) in the 1990s; and to test whether smoking rooms at Lambert Airport protect non-smokers from exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS) in adjacent non-smoking areas.

Methods: Tobacco industry document websites were searched for previously secret documents relating to efforts to maintain smoking in Lambert Airport. Testing of SHS contamination in non-smoking areas adjacent to a designated smoking room was conducted at Lambert Airport in 1997-98 and again in 2002. A 1998 comparative test was also performed inside nominally smoke-free Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac Airport). Tests were performed using either static or active nicotine monitors.

Results: Industry documents show that the tobacco industry promoted the construction of designated smoking rooms as a way to sidetrack efforts to make Lambert Airport entirely non-smoking. Nicotine vapour air monitoring in a non-smoking area of the airport, adjacent to a smoking room located in Terminal C, reveals elevated levels of ambient nicotine vapour in excess of what would be expected in a completely non-smoking environment.

Conclusions: This study shows that airport smoking rooms expose non-smokers in adjacent non-smoking areas to a significant concentration of nicotine vapour from SHS.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aerospace Medicine*
  • Air Pollutants / analysis
  • Air Pollution, Indoor
  • Attitude to Health
  • Environmental Monitoring / methods
  • Nicotine / analysis
  • Organizational Policy
  • Smoking Prevention*
  • Tobacco Industry
  • Tobacco Smoke Pollution / analysis*

Substances

  • Air Pollutants
  • Tobacco Smoke Pollution
  • Nicotine