Mortality from occupational exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in Finland

This article aimed to estimate the mortality from exposure to passive smoki ng at work in Finland. The estimation used statistics on causes of death, e xposure prevalences, and risk ratios from epidemiologic studies. The attrib utable fractions of cause-specific mortality from passive smoking at work w ere 2.8% for lung cancer, 1.1% for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 4 .5% for asthma, 3.4% for ischemic heart disease, and 9.4% for cerebrovascul ar stroke. Altogether, about 250 fatalities were estimated to have occurred in 1996. This is approximately 0.9% of the total mortality in the Finnish population in the relevant disease and age categories. The magnitude of mor tality related to past occupational exposure to passive smoking is consider able. Preventive measures to reduce environmental tobacco smoke in the work place will be a powerful means of reducing the high burden of respiratory a nd cardiovascular diseases.