A trip to the movies could mean exposure to thirdhand smoke
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Smokers can contaminate nonsmoking places and expose other people to high levels of thirdhand smoke, according to research published in Science Advances that found a movie theater was contaminated with nicotine and tobacco-related chemicals despite being a nonsmoking environment.
“This represents a significant but poorly understood risk to nonsmokers, and a source of reactive chemicals indoors,” Drew Gentner, PhD, associate professor of chemical & environmental engineering at Yale University, said during a press conference. “So while questions for scientists and policymakers remain, it is clear that the myriad of chemicals from cigarette smoke do not remain isolated to where they are smoked.”
Gentner and colleagues conducted a case study at a single movie theater that had not allowed smoking for the past 15 years. For the study, the theater was supplied with 100% fresh, nonrecirculated air. The researchers used online and offline high-resolution mass spectrometry to measure real-time thirdhand off-gassing when the theater was empty, before people arrived and as they took their seats.
Over the course of the 4-day study period, the theater had showings of both “G-rated” and “R-rated” films.
The researchers identified prominent emissions of thirdhand smoke tracers like 2,5-dimethylfuran and 2-methylfuran during the study.
They also discovered that the arrival certain attendees coincided with emissions of other tobacco-related volatile organic compounds and left residual contamination in the theater, exposing moviegoers to an equivalent of one to 10 cigarettes of secondhand smoke. This exposure included hazardous air pollutants like benzene and formaldehyde.
Gentner and colleagues identified the highest concentrations of these volatile organic compounds during late-night and R-rated films, despite attendance being lower at these showings. They explained that this was likely due to the higher proportion of adults attending these showings compared with G-rated films.
Approximately 34% of observed functionalized organic aerosol abundance was made up of nicotine and similar intermediate volatility compounds that contained nicotine. According to the researchers, these substances vaporized from attendees’ clothing and bodies before entering the air, and the high prevalence of these contaminants in the air implies that there was substantial contamination on surfaces in the theater.
Gentner and colleagues wrote that e-cigarettes did not noticeably contribute to the identified thirdhand smoke-related volatile organic compounds, but e-cigarette vapor may have added to the observed abundance of nicotine. Therefore, they noted that future research should focus on the prevalence of “thirdhand vape.”
Although the study takes place in a movie theater, researchers explained that the findings are generalizable to similar indoor settings.
Roger Sheu, a PhD candidate at Yale University and lead author of the study, said during the press conference that “the average person should continue to go to movie theaters and similar social spaces, but we need to be aware of our potential role as carriers of residual tobacco smoke into nonsmoking environments.”– by Erin Michael
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.