LUNG-CANCER FROM PASSIVE SMOKING AT WORK

Objectives. This study was undertaken to determine whether exposure at work to environmental tobacco smoke is associated with an increased r isk of lung cancer. Method's. Data from 14 studies providing informati on on lung cancer and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke at work were examined. Six quality criteria were developed for determining usa ble data. A meta-analysis was performed to obtain a combined risk for those data that met the quality restrictions. Results. Five studies me t the quality standards. Their combined relative risk was 1.39 (95% co nfidence interval [CI] = 1.15, 1.68) based on 835 lung cancer cases. I n various meta-analyses prepared by tobacco industry employees or cons ultants, no increase in risk was found. The main reason for this diffe rence is that the earlier analysts failed to find errors in 2 underlyi ng studies that resulted in overweighting of the odds ratios from thos e studies, both of which were less than unity. Conclusions. When appro priate cognizance is taken of the quality of data inputs, the increase in lung cancer risk from workplace exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is about the same as that from household exposure.