Indoor smoking bans have forced smokers at bars and restaurants onto outdoor patios, but a new UGA study in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that these outdoor smoking areas might be creating a new health hazard.
The study found cotinine levels up to 162 percent greater than in the control group.
“Indoor smoking bans have helped to create more of these outdoor environments where people are exposed to secondhand smoke,” said study co-author Luke Naeher, an associate professor in the College of Public Health. “We know from our previous study that there are measurable airborne levels of secondhand smoke in these environments, and we know from this study that we can measure internal exposure.”
Athens-Clarke County officials enacted an indoor smoking ban in 2005, providing Naeher and his colleagues with an ideal environment for their study. The team recruited 20 non-smoking adults and placed them in one of three environments: outside bars, outside restaurants and, for the control group, outside the UGA main library. Immediately before and after the six-hour study period, the volunteers gave a saliva sample that was tested for levels of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine and a commonly used marker of tobacco exposure.
The team found an average increase in cotinine of
162 percent for the volunteers stationed at outdoor seating and standing areas at bars, a 102 percent increase for those outside of restaurants and a 16 percent increase for the control group near the library. Naeher said that an exposure of six hours is greater than what an average patron would experience but that employees can be exposed for even longer periods.
