You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

Research letter
E-cigarette use in air transit: self-reported data from US flight attendants
  1. Frances A Stillman1,
  2. Andrea Soong1,
  3. Laura Y Zheng2,
  4. Ana Navas-Acien2
  1. 1Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Institute for Global Tobacco, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
  2. 2Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Frances A Stillman, Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Institute for Global Tobacco, 2213 McElderry Street, 4th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA; fstillm1{at}jhu.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2013-051514

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Introduction

    The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) in air transit, and to understand potential problems created by this practice for flight crew and patrons. Safety concerns around the long-term effects of e-cigarette use and passive inhalation in enclosed spaces are being studied, yet e-cigarettes are increasingly being used in smoke-free places.1 No studies have examined the issues of e-cigarette use in air transit.

    Methods

    In 2012, we surveyed 723 flight attendants for a study on secondhand smoke and air quality in the work environment. Participants were recruited through a flight attendant union and advertisement in social media groups for flight attendants. Based on discussions with flight attendants and key informants, it was determined that eligible participants had to service a minimum of two international flights per month for at least 1 year in their current position. The study focused on US carriers but participation was open to all English-speaking flight attendants.

    Participants were asked “Do you use e-cigarettes? (yes or no)”. Next they were asked whether they ever observed anyone using an e-cigarette in an airport or aeroplane (yes or no), and if yes, an open-ended response obtained further details on their observations of e-cigarette use. All open responses were coded using Stata to assign categories for location of observation (aeroplane, airport, other) and person observed …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Correction notice This article has been corrected since it was published Online First. In the Results section the sentence ‘Among those respondents, 41.3% reported seeing an e-cigarette used in an aeroplane, 25% on an aeroplane…’ has been amended to ‘Among those respondents, 41.3% reported seeing an e-cigarette used in an airplane, 25% in an airport…’.

    • Contributors  FAS and AN-A led the study concept and design. FAS supervised the study and oversaw the acquisition of data. AN-A had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Authors AS, LYZ, and AN-A were responsible for the analysis and interpretation of data. FAS, AN-A, and AS drafted the manuscript and were responsible for critical revision of the manuscript. FAS obtained funding for the research. AS was responsible for administrative, technical, and material support. All authors gave final approval of the manuscript.

    • Funding The work was supported by grant number 108594 from the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute (FAMRI) to the Johns Hopkins FAMRI Center of Excellence. Co-author Laura Zheng was supported by training grant T42OH008428 from the NIOSH Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health. The funders had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of data, writing of the report, nor in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Institutional Review Board.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement We are willing to make all data available to any interested parties. Please contact corresponding author Dr Stillman for more information.