SAN FRANCISCO, May 23 (UPI) -- Smoking bans may make the insides of U.S. buildings smoke-free, but dozens of smokers outside buildings could create smoke-filled areas.
Luke Naeher, of the University of Georgia College of Public Health, said that some 40 to 50 smokers congregating outside a building to smoke can translate to fairly aggressive exposures to secondhand smoke, even if it is outside.
Naeher and his students measured carbon monoxide and small particles, known as PM2.5, which penetrate deep into the lung. Both substances are found in secondhand smoke, but they are also found in car exhaust.
The researchers measured the particles and carbon monoxide every 30 seconds, and then every five minutes they counted the number of cars, smokers and nonsmokers who passed by.
The study found that a rise in the pollutants was associated with an increase in the number of smokers, and not with motor vehicle traffic.
"This suggests that we can measure the increase in these pollutants from secondhand smoke," Naeher said in a presentation at the American Thoracic Society International Conference in San Francisco.
