RESEARCH >> Survey of Smoking in the Workplace

In 2000, the Department of Public Health sent 100 questionnaires to randomly selected businesses in Gibraltar and another 80 questionnaires to randomly selected Government departments, primarily to investigate whether a Smoking Policy was in use on the premises, what its provisions were, what the employees' exposure to passive smoking was and whether lack of information was a hurdle to a Smoking Policy. The response rate to the survey was 62% (commercial), 60% (government) and 61% (overall), which is acceptable in surveys of this sort, yielding a sample of between 8% and 20% of all workplace premises.

It was found that over 60% of all organisations in the sample had a Smoking Policy and there was little difference whether the organisation was commercial or governmental. The formality of the policy was however quite low, as only 31% of the policies were written, the rest being either verbal though compulsory (30%) or entirely voluntary (36%). As most surveys of this kind define Smoking Policies as written and enforced, the prevalence of true Smoking Policies in Gibraltar would be around 1 in 5 (19%) of all workplaces.
It was learnt that establishments that had Smoking Policies generally enforced them - about 49% said that smoking was not permitted anywhere on the premises. However, another 36% provided a dedicated smoking area. About 7% were frustrated by the fact that some people ignored the policy and smoked where they liked. Just over a third (36%) welcomed more information about smoking prevention.

The position with establishments that did not have Smoking Policies was quite different. By far the majority (73%) operated an environment where there was no dedicated area for smokers and in which people could smoke where they liked. When asked why they did not have a Smoking Policy, about 28% cited staff preference, but surprisingly, only 5% said that they did it because their customers wanted it - the popular belief that establishments avoid Smoking Policies so as not to turn away customers is not that true. However, by far the largest proportion (60%) simply said that they had never thought about it. A small number (8%) cited combinations of the above reasons.
On the question of dedicated smoking areas, 19% of establishments have designated smoking areas and more than three-quarters of establishments operating such areas prohibit smoking anywhere else.
The organisations in the samples ranged from those with fewer than five employees to those who had over 150. Interestingly, there was no significant difference between large or small organisations whether they had a Smoking Policy. However, large organisations can clearly impact on the health of their employees more than small ones and the table below shows the environments in which employees work.