TY - JOUR T1 - Passive smoking at work: the short-term cost JF - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health JO - J Epidemiol Community Health SP - 673 LP - 676 DO - 10.1136/jech.54.9.673 VL - 54 IS - 9 AU - Sarah M McGhee AU - Pemane Adab AU - Anthony J Hedley AU - Tai Hing Lam AU - Lai Ming Ho AU - Richard Fielding AU - Chit Ming Wong Y1 - 2000/09/01 UR - http://jech.bmj.com/content/54/9/673.abstract N2 - STUDY OBJECTIVE To estimate the impact of passive smoking at work on use of health care services and absenteeism. DESIGN Cross sectional survey. SETTING A workforce in Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS 5142 never-smoking police officers in a total sample of 9926. MAIN RESULTS A consistently strong association was found among men between length of time exposed to passive smoking at work and self reported consultations with a doctor, use of medicines and time off work. Results for women were similar but most were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS The exposure of healthy adults to passive smoking at work is related to utilisation of health care services and extra time off work. This results in costs to the health services, to employers and to those exposed. ER -