Environmental Tobacco Smoke Characterization and Exposure

Explanation of 16 Cities Study Database

In 1993 - 1994, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, under the sponsorship of the Center for Indoor Air Research, conducted the largest single study of personal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke ever conducted in a single country. Approximately 100 subjects from each of 16 cities geographically dispersed around the United States were recruited. Each subject wore a personal breathing zone sampler that collected components of both the particle and vapor phases of ETS to which the subjects were exposed. One sampler was used while the subject was at his/her workplace and another when the subject was away from work. Time weighted average concentrations of respirable suspended particulate matter (RSP), ultraviolet absorbing and fluorescing particulate matter, solanesol and scopoletin, 3-ethenyl pyridine, nicotine, and myosmine were determined. Saliva samples were collected at the beginning and end of the study period for the subject, and cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, was determined.

A number of important findings arose from the data generated from the study. Most notably, that subjects who spent more time in smoking environments had higher exposures to ETS; that, for those subjects that either work or live in smoking environments, the home is a substantially larger source of exposure; and that levels of salivary cotinine, on an individual basis, are not useful for predicting quantitative exposure to ETS. Data and findings from this study have resulted in a number of manuscripts being published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. These manuscripts are listed below.

For several years, the Sapphire Group, members of which have co-authored several of the related manuscripts, has been making the key data from this study available on CD-ROM. The Principal Investigator (PI) of the study, Roger A. Jenkins, is now offering the same database available to the public through this web site, in hopes that it will stimulate further considerations of the implication of the data. Note that this is by all means not all of the data collected from the study, as there were vast numbers of questions related to personal behaviors, dietary habits, etc for which there is a considerably larger data set. In the interest of making the data set manageable, the database has been provided in a large spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, along with a data dictionary, that explains the various data categories. If there is sufficient interest, the PI could make the full relational database available at a later date.

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Questions concerning the study or the data should be directed to the PI Roger Jenkins. However, users are strongly encouraged to read the two primary manuscripts on the study, Jenkins, Palausky, Counts, etc in JEAEE, 1996, and Jenkins and Counts, JEAEE, 1999 (see below), prior to contacting the authors. Many of the questions will be answered in those detailed manuscripts.

16 Cities Study Related Peer Reviewed Manuscripts

Gevecker Graves, C.,Ginevan, M. E., Jenkins, R. A., Tardiff, R. G. (2000). "Doses and lung burdens of environmental tobacco smoke constituents in nonsmoking workplaces." J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 10(4): 365-77.

Jenkins, RA and Counts R.W., "Occupational Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Results of Two Personal Exposure Studies" Environmental Health Perspectives 107 Suppl 2 341 - 348, 1999

Jenkins, R.A and Counts, R.W.,"Personal Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Salivary Cotinine, Airborne Nicotine, and Non-smoker Misclassification", Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 9, 352 - 363, 1999

LaKind JS, Jenkins RA, Naiman DQ, Ginevan ME, Graves CG, Tardiff RG. "Use of Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Constituents as Markers for Exposure." Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 19 (3) 359 - 373,1999

LaKind JS, Graves CG, Ginevan ME, Jenkins RA, Naiman DQ, and Tardiff RG "Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the Workplace and the Impact of Away-from-work Exposure" Risk Analysis: An International Journal, 19 (3) 349 - 358, 1999

LaKind JS, Ginevan ME, Naiman DQ, James AC, Jenkins RA, Dourson ML, Felter SP, Graves CG, and Tardiff RG "Distribution of Exposure Concentrations and Doses for Constituents of Environmental Tobacco Smoke" Risk Analysis: An International Journal 19 (3), 375 - 390, 1999

Roger A. Jenkins, Andi Palausky, Richard W. Counts, Charles K. Bayne,Amy B. Dindal, and Michael R. Guerin, "Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke in Sixteen Cities in the United States As Determined by Personal Breathing Zone Air Sampling," Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology, 6,(4) 473 - 502, 1996

Roger A. Jenkins, "Methodological Considerations for the Study of Human Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke," Tumor (Shanghai), 16, 480 - 486, 1996

Roger A. Jenkins, Andi Palausky, Richard W. Counts, Michael R. Guerin, Amy. B. Dindal, and Charles K. Bayne, "Determination of personal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in the United States," Lung Cancer, 14 Suppl. 1, S195 - S213, 1996