Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Mar-Apr;125(2):225-33.
doi: 10.1177/003335491012500211.

The association of workplace hazards and smoking in a U.S. multiethnic working-class population

Cassandra A Okechukwu  1 , Nancy Krieger, Jarvis Chen, Glorian Sorensen, Yi Li, Elizabeth M Barbeau
Affiliations

The association of workplace hazards and smoking in a U.S. multiethnic working-class population

Cassandra A Okechukwu et al. Public Health Rep. 2010 Mar-Apr.

Abstract

Objective: We investigated the extent to which smoking status was associated with exposure to occupational (e.g., dust, chemicals, noise, and ergonomic strain) and social (e.g., abuse, sexual harassment, and racial discrimination) workplace hazards in a sample of U.S. multiethnic working-class adults.

Methods: United for Health is a cross-sectional study designed to investigate the combined burden of occupational and social workplace hazards in relation to race/ethnicity, gender, and wage and to evaluate related health effects in a working-class population. Using validated measures, we collected data from 1,282 multiethnic working-class participants using audio computer-assisted interviews. We used multiple imputation methods to impute data for those missing data. Crude and adjusted logistic odds ratios (ORs) were modeled to estimate ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Results: The prevalence of smoking was highest among non-Hispanic white workers (38.3%) and lowest for foreign-born workers (13.1%). We found an association between racial discrimination and smoking (OR = 1.12, 95% CI 1.01, 1.25). The relationship between smoking and sexual harassment, although not significant, was different for black women compared with men (OR = 1.79, 95% CI 0.99, 3.22). We did not find any associations by workplace abuse or by any of the occupational hazards.

Conclusion: These results indicate that racial discrimination might be related to smoking in working-class populations and should be considered in tobacco-control efforts that target this high-risk population.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Barbeau EM, Krieger N, Soobader MJ. Working class matters: socioeconomic disadvantage, race/ethnicity, gender, and smoking in NHIS 2000 [published erratum appears in Am J Public Health 2004;94:1295] Am J Public Health. 2004;94:269–78. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US) Targeting tobacco use: the nation's leading cause of preventable death, 2008. Atlanta: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC; 2008. [cited 2009 Jun 11]. Also available from: URL: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/publications/aag/pdf/osh.pdf.
    1. Giovino GA, Pederson LL, Trosclair A. The prevalence of selected cigarette smoking behaviors by occupational class in the United States. Proceedings from: Work, Smoking, and Health: A National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Scientific Workshop; 2000 Jun 15–16; Washington.
    1. Haenszel W, Shimkin MB, Miller HP. Tobacco smoking patterns in the United States. Public Health Monogr. 1956;45:1–105. - PubMed
    1. Nelson DE, Emont SL, Brackbill RM, Cameron LL, Peddicord J, Fiore MC. Cigarette smoking prevalence by occupation in the United States. J Occup Med. 1994;36:516–25. A comparison between 1978 to 1980 and 1987 to 1990. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms