This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Chris Collett; Theodor D. Sterling
Associates Ltd Vancouver, British Columbia

JAMA. 1993;269(11):1388.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—Borland et al¹ present data from a survey of reported workplace exposures to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) among nonsmoking Californian adults. Exposure was assessed by the question, "During the past 2 weeks has anyone smoked in the area in which you work?" Information was also obtained about the type of smoking policies at the respondent's workplace. The authors concluded that "the only way to protect nonsmokers' health is with a smoke-free worksite."

This conclusion does not appear to be justified by the reported data. The mere presence of a smoker within a nonsmoker's workplace for an undetermined length of time during the 2 weeks prior to a survey does not warrant a conclusion that smoking should be prohibited. Borland et al neither determine the actual level of exposure to ETS nor assess the working conditions of the population being studied. Instead, the authors simply categorize the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?