TOBACCO SMOKING AMONG WORKERS FROM A SUGAR-ALCOHOL PLANT IN BRAZIL

Abstract

A survey was held in a Sugar-Alcohol Plant in Brazil in order to identify tobacco smoking habits among its workers. The method was a quiz interview, whereas 248 workers from 17 different sectors of the company were interviewed. This information is expected to contribute to studies of productivity and absenteeism from work, in particular those related to health problems in the sectors where the interviews were carried out. Therefore, this study is of the foremost interest for the company and its workers, considering that such habit has a close relationship to their quality of life. The results have shown that the majority of the workers do not smoke, followed by those who smoke up to 20 cigarettes a day. Only 2 workers (0,81%) reported that they smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day, showing that the tobacco smoking habit prevails only among a small fraction of the interviewed workers. These data should be taken into consideration since most of
them work in fire risk areas.