Abstract
Background: The death number of passive smoking might reaches about 6800 cases annually in Japan, and 3600, or more than half of the total are said to be caused at working sites. Therefore, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare decided to make a plan to revise the Industrial Safety and Health Act to be aimed for strengthening the actions against passive smoking in work places. The purposes of this research are to clarify the actual status of the cease- smoking actions in workplaces, and to investigate the promoting factors and hindering factors to the cease-smoking actions.
Method: A self- administered questionnaire was investigated, and 6373 nationwide offices that had obtained the answer were analyzed.
Results: The offices where the smoking rate and the problem rate in periodic physical examinations were low, kept a significantly higher ratio of the successful cease-smoking activity (p＜0.01). The offices where recognition and the understanding of the concerning laws, the WHO guidelines etc., were done better, are successful in no-smoking. Among those, offices with low smoking rates and with low problem rates of physical examinations were significantly at higher ratio (p＜0.01). As anti- passive smoking measures, installation of the isolated smoking room was the highest as 27.9%, and the ratio of offices with cease-smoking was 30 percent as a whole.
The motive of the most offices that answered to make overall no smoking, was mostly based on the decision of the person in charge of health administration, on the necessity of frames work of the office and by the national health regulations. The reasons why the office has not made overall no smoking were mostly organized the separation of no smoking areas for examples by installation of isolated smoking rooms, etc. Moreover, it was answered from 74% offices that they would improve the non-smoking measures when Occupational Health and Safety Law would be revised.
Conclusion: It is expected necessarily that “complete cease of smoking” must be clearly declared and enforced in a policy and implemented, in order to ensure maintenance of the health and life of employees. For the promotion of “complete non-smoking”, it is important for us to disseminate more knowledge about the influence of smoking on health and business, to emphasize the harmful effects of both passive smoking and active smoking, and the necessity for “complete cease of smoking”, its merits, etc., including WHO guidelines and international trends to workers including representatives of management.

View full abstract

Abstract
Background: Passive smoking has been shown to exert a more serious influence at workplaces than at any other places in Japan; therefore, immediate attention is needed for effective measures to prevent passive smoking at workplaces. The present study was aimed at investigating effective measures to provide smoke-free environments at workplaces.
Method: For the purpose of measuring the exposure level to SHS（Secondhand smoke） at work facilities, the level of particle matter (PM2.5), which has been proven to be associated with some diseases such as lung cancer and myocardial infarction, and for the control of which the WHO has issued Guidelines for Air Quality, was measured and evaluated based on the types of measures used against passive smoking. The urinary level of cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, was also measured in the workers, and evaluated based on the types of measures used against passive smoking.
Results: The measured levels of PM2.5 at 214 facilities and of the urinary levels of cotinine in 143 workers were compared among places implementing different types of measures used against passive smoking at their facilities, including a complete ban on smoking at the facility, separation of smoking areas in buildings (smoking room, smoking corner, and smoking allowed during a specific time), and no ban on smoking in the office . The results indicated the presence of exposure to passive smoking at all the facilities, except at the facilities that had imposed a complete ban on smoking.
Conclusion: This study suggests that a complete ban on smoking at the work facility is the only effective measure to prevent passive smoking at work.

View full abstract