Second-hand Workplace Smoke Under Study

Researchers are expanding a four-year, $2.3 million study on the effects of second-hand smoke in the workplace to northern Nevada.

Researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno want to include a Reno site where non-smokers work in smoky environments. Chris Pritsos is chairman of UNR´s Department of Nutrition and the lead researcher on the project.

He´s trying to recruit 375 non-smoking workers for the study and already has 51 taking part in Las Vegas. He wants to learn whether a combination of anti-oxidant vitamin supplements might reduce the health risk for bartenders, cocktail waitresses and others who work inside smoky casinos and bars.

Volunteers will be split into groups taking different levels of supplements to find out which are most effective. The research project is being funded by the National Institutes of Health, and is the first major study into the effects of workplace exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.