Do Tobacco Control Policies Reduce Secondhand Smoke Exposure in the Workplace?

This paper estimates the effects of tobacco control policies on non-smoking workers' exposure to secondhand smoke at their jobs. I use a novel measure of workers' self-reported exposure to secondhand smoke at their jobs from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys and combine this self-reported measure with a biomarker of individuals’ recent nicotine exposure to test whether any decrease in self-reported secondhand smoke exposure translates to reduced overall nicotine exposure. While I find little evidence that cigarette excise taxes or prices reduce workers’ exposure to secondhand smoke, I find evidence that workplace and restaurant or bar smoke-free air laws reduce secondhand smoke exposure and these reductions translate into reduced overall nicotine exposure. I more directly test whether workplace and restaurant or bar smoke-free air laws reduce overall secondhand smoke exposure through changes in work exposure by estimating specifications interacting the level of reported workplace exposure with tobacco control policies. I some evidence that this reduction in nicotine exposure comes from reductions in secondhand exposure at work and evidence that smoke-free air laws reduce secondhand smoke exposure through other pathways as well.