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Air Nicotine and Saliva Cotinine as Indicators of Workplace Passive Smoking Exposure and Risk 1
Author(s) -
Repace James L.,
Jinot Jennifer,
Bayard Steven,
Emmons Karen,
Hammond S. Katharine
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1998.tb00917.x
Subject(s) - cotinine , tobacco smoke , environmental health , medicine , lung cancer , nicotine , passive smoking , occupational exposure , heart disease , demography , sociology
We model nicotine from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in office air and salivary cotinine in nonsmoking U.S. workers. We estimate that: an average salivary cotinine level of 0.4 ng/ml corresponds to an increased lifetime mortality risk of 1/1000 for lung cancer, and 1/100 for heart disease; >95% of ETS‐exposed office workers exceed OSHA's significant risk level for heart disease mortality, and 60% exceed significant risk for lung cancer mortality; 4000 heart disease deaths and 400 lung cancer deaths occur annually among office workers from passive smoking in the workplace, at the current 28% prevalence of unrestricted smoking in the office workplace.