Secondhand smoke exposure and related factors among employees in public places

Objective To investigate the exposure of secondhand smoke(SHS), warning labels and tobacco related knowledge among employees working in public places.Methods Purposive sampling method was used to choose a total of 1 676 staff from public places such as medical care settings, government agencies and restaurants in 6 national non-communicable disease control and prevention demonstration areas in 6 provinces or municipalities for a questionnaire survey between April to July 2014.Results Among all the respondents, 90.58% were non-smokers, of which, 65.48% reported exposed to SHS.Multivariate analysis showed that category of the public place(medical care setting vs.restaurant:odds ratioOR=3.094, 95% confidence interval95%CI:1.752-5.464), economic area of the public place (eastern vs.western area:OR=0.439, 95%CI:0.330-0.582;middle vs.western area:OR=0.699, 95%CI:0.522-0.936), administration region of the public place(urban vs.rural region:OR=0.719, 95%CI:0.574-0.902), and education level of the respondent(college or above vs.high school or below:OR=1.403, 95%CI:1.008-1.953) were related to SHS exposure(all P<0.05).Of the respondents, 92.54% reported having been reading warning labels or materials about tobacco control in their workplaces within the previous 30 days.Multivariate analysis showed that category of the public place(medical care setting vs.restaurant:OR=5.449, 95%CI:2.633-11.276;government agency vs.restaurant:OR=0.438, 95%CI:0.205-0.934), economic area of the public place (eastern vs.western area:OR=2.015, 95%CI:1.296-3.135;middle vs.western area:OR=9.556, 95%CI:4.609-19.814), administration region of the public place(urban vs.rural region:OR=2.567, 95%CI:1.667-3.951) and gender(female vs.male:OR=0.389, 95%CI:0.248-0.608) were significant influencing factors for respondents' awareness of tobacco control labels(all P<0.05).The correct answer rate for tobacco related questions ranged from 44.10% to 92.74%;the two questions with the lower correct answer rate were about health hazard of "low tar" and "light" cigarette (44.10% and 47.54%) Conclusion The SHS exposure among the staff in public places is still serious.Measures such as raising the coverage of the warning labels and improving tobacco related knowledge should be taken to cope with the situation.