The New York Times: New Yorkers Often Exposed to Cigarette Smoke, Study Finds

More than half of all nonsmokers in New York City have elevated levels of a nicotine byproduct in their blood indicating recent exposure to cigarette smoke, a city health department study has found. The figure is surprisingly high given the city’s stringent public smoking ban, among the toughest in the country.

Some 56.7 percent of nonsmokers living in the city were found to have elevated levels of the nicotine metabolite cotinine, compared with an average 44.9 percent of nonsmokers nationwide. Among the ethnic groups studied, nonsmokers of Asian descent were most often affected, with 68.7 percent of those examined showing elevated blood levels of cotinine.

The long-term health consequences of the finding are not known, but secondhand smoke is estimated to account for at least 35,000 deaths from heart disease and 3,000 deaths from lung cancer in nonsmokers nationwide each year.

Researchers with the health department said they were unsettled by the finding, which they called “puzzling.”

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