The Interplay of Science, Values, and Experiences Among Scientists Asked to Evaluate the Hazards of Dioxin, Radon, and Environmental Tobacco Smoke

To investigate the extent to which personal values and experiences among scientists might affect their assessment of risks from dioxin, radon, and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), we conducted an experiment through a telephone survey of 1461 epidemiologists, toxicologists, physicians, and general scientists. Each participant was read a vignette designed to reflect the mainstream scientific thinking on one of the three substances. For half of the participants (group A) the substance was named. For the other half (group B), the substance was not named but was identified only as Substance X, Y, or Z. Knowing the name of the substance had little effect on the scientists' evaluation of dioxin, although those who knew the substance to be dioxin were more likely to rate the substance as a serious environmental health hazard (51% vs. 42%, p = 0.062). For radon, those who knew the substance by name were significantly more likely to consider it an environmental health hazard than were those who knew it as substance Z (91% vs. 78%, p less than 0.001). Participants who knew they were being asked about ETS rather than substance X were significantly more likely to consider the substance an environmental health hazard (88% vs. 66%, p less than 0.001), to consider the substance a serious environmental health hazard (70% vs. 33%, p less than 0.001), to believe that background exposure required public health intervention (85% vs. 41%, p less than 0.001), and to believe that above-background exposure required public health intervention (90% vs. 74%, p less than 0.001). These findings suggest that values and experiences may be influencing health risk assessments for these substances, and indicate the need for more study of this phenomenon.     

Assessing Exposures to Environmental Tobacco Smoke

The combustion of tobacco indoors results in the emission of a wide range of air contaminants that are associated with a variety of acute and chronic health and comfort effects. Exposures to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) are assessed for epidemiologic studies and risk assessment and risk management applications. An individual's or population's exposure to ETS can be assessed by direct methods, which employ personal air monitoring and biomarkers, and indirect methods, which utilize various degrees of microenvironmental measurements of spaces, models, and questionnaires in combination with time-activity information. The major issues related to assessing exposures to ETS are summarized and discussed, including the physical-chemical nature of ETS air contaminants, use of proxy air contaminants to represent ETS, use of biomarkers, models for estimating ETS concentrations indoors, and the application of questionnaires.     

Use of Environmental Tobacco Smoke Constituents as Markers for Exposure

The 16-City Study analyzed for gas-phase environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) constituents (nicotine, 3-ethenyl pyridine [3-EP], and myosmine) and for particulate-phase constituents (respirable particulate matter [RSP], ultraviolet-absorbing particulate matter [UVPM], fluorescing particulate matter [FPM], scopoletin, and solanesol). In this second of three articles, we discuss the merits of each constituent as a marker for ETS and report pair-wise comparisons of the markers. Neither nicotine nor UVPM were good predictors for RSP. However, nicotine and UVPM were good qualitative predictors of each other. Nicotine was correlated with other gas-phase constituents. Comparisons between UVPM and other particulate-phase constituents were performed. Its relation with FPM was excellent, with UVPM approximately 1 1/2 times FPM. The correlation between UVPM and solanesol was good, but the relationship between the two was not linear. The relation between UVPM and scopoletin was not good, largely because of noise in the scopoletin measures around its limit of detection. We considered the relation between nicotine and saliva cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine. The two were highly correlated on the group level. That is, for each cell (smoking home and work, smoking home but nonsmoking work, and so forth), there was high correlation between average cotinine and 24-hour time-weighted average (TWA) nicotine concentrations. However, on the individual level, the correlations, although significant, were not biologically meaningful. A consideration of cotinine and nicotine or 3-EP on a subset of the study whose only exposure to ETS was exclusively at work or exclusively at home showed that home exposure was a more important source of ETS than work exposure.     

论我国烟草行业地方保护现象的体制原因与消解对策

我国加入WTO以后,烟草行业面临着国内市场不断开放和国际市场激烈竞争的压力.目前,我国烟草行业的地方保护现象仍未得到根本消解,主要原因有政企合一的管理体制、税收制度和工商不完全分离等.因此,为打破地区封锁,提高企业竞争力和充分发挥规模效益,应当逐步推行政企分开的管理体制、合理的税收制度和流通体制方面的改革措施.     

科学发展观在企业管理中的应用问题分析——以烟草行业为例

科学发展观是国有企业在今后发展中的重要指导思想。坚持以人为本是科学发展观的核心,坚持正确的政绩观是科学发展观的保障,坚持求真务实是科学发展观的关键。烟草行业是我国国有企业的重要组成部分,在烟草行业整合、变革的今天,坚持科学发展观有重要的现实意义。     

“工商分离”后烟草行业发展所面临的问题

随着我国加入WTO和世界控烟局势的愈演愈烈,烟草行业发展面临的问题也越来越多。文章阐述了烟草行业“工商分离”体制的背景及其发展状况,对“工商分离”前后烟草行业进行对比分析,指出国家财税制度改革和企业管理模式的弊端,使烟草行业存在诸多问题,同时提出了烟草行业财税制度改革和企业兼并重组等改革建议。     

现代烟草农业建设的“三维”模式及其实施方略——以湖南为例

现代烟草农业应立足烟叶种植、烟农工作和烟叶生产基础设施的＂三维＂发展模式。湖南是全国重要的烟叶生产基地,烟草农业在这个农业大省中占有重要地位。虽然近几年湖南省不断加大烟叶生产基础设施投入,全面加强烟叶生产组织基层建设,努力提高烟区综合生产能力,烟叶生产呈现持续平稳健康发展的良好态势,但传统烟草农业及烟叶生产中的传统要素比重仍然很大,传统的组织方式还在继续延续,烟叶生产和传统烟草农业潜在的矛盾和问题还比较明显。因此,湖南现代烟草农业建设应跳出烟草农业来谋划烟草农业的发展,跳出烟农来筹划烟农工作,跳出烟区农村来筹划烟区新农村建设,根据全省烟叶经济区划,按＂四区五类＂的基本方略,以＂民本烟草＂的工作方法来加快发展。     

Comparing the effectiveness of behavioral interventions in adults with co-occurring tobacco and substance use disorders: a systematic review of literature

ABSTRACT

This systematic literature review compares the e?ectiveness of various behavioral interventions delivered to persons with co-occurring tobacco and substance use disorders. It examines ?ndings of six randomized trials and three secondary analyses from randomized trials. Based on the ?ndings of this literature review, support is given to the following: (1) The consequences of tobacco use and smoking are deadly, costly, and can have an inhibitory e?ect on the progress of people in substance abuse treatment, (2) tobacco cessation options are a preventive intervention that can be easily incorporated into a treatment facility’s standard of practice and should be made available within the context of all substance abuse treatment facilities, and (3) concurrently treating tobacco use disorder and substance use disorder(s) is an e?ort that will help meet the social work profession’s Grand Challenge to ‘Close the Health Gap.’     

Pubertal Timing and Adolescent Substance Initiation

We tested 3 competing hypotheses regarding the relation between pubertal timing and substance initiation in adolescence: the early timing, off-time, and stressful change hypotheses. We used longitudinal data from the Developmental Pathways Project (N = 521). Youth reported whether they had ever tried alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana at baseline, and then again at 6-, 12-, 18-, 24-, 36-, and 72-month follow-up interviews. We estimated interval censored parametric survival models and tested interactions between pubertal timing and gender and race variables. We found robust support for the early timing hypothesis, but no support for the off-time and the stressful change hypotheses.