BMC Public Health Research article Levels of second hand smoke in pubs and bars by deprivation and food-serving status: a cross-sectional study from North West England Richard Edwards*1, Christian P Hasselholdt2, Kim Hargreaves3, Claire Probert4, Richard Holford5, Judy Hart6, Martie Van Tongeren7 and Adrian FR Watson2 BioMed Central Open Access Address: 1Department of Public Health, Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand, 2Department of Environmental & Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Oxford Rd, Manchester, UK, 3East Lancashire Public Health Network, Eagle St, Accrington, UK, 4North West ASH, Silver St, Bury, UK, 5Manchester Public Health Development Service, Victoria Mill, Lower VickersStreet, Manchester, UK, 6Evidence for Population Health, Division of Epidemiology and Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester, UK and 7Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Division of Epidemiology and Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester, UK Email: Richard Edwards* - Richard.Edwards@otago.ac.nz; Christian P Hasselholdt - houchez@hotmail.com; Kim Hargreaves - kim_m_hargreaves@yahoo.com.au; Claire Probert - claire.probert@burypct.nhs.uk; Richard Holford - richard.holford@northpct.manchester.nwest.nhs.uk; Judy Hart - judy.hart@manchester.ac.uk; Martie Van Tongeren - martie.j.van-tongeren@manchester.ac.uk; Adrian FR Watson - a.watson@mmu.ac.uk * Corresponding author Published: 22 February 2006 BMC Public Health 2006, 6:42 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-6-42 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/42 Received: 25 January 2006 Accepted: 22 February 2006 © 2006 Edwards et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The UK government proposed introducing partial smokefree legislation for England with exemptions for pubs and bars that do not prepare and serve food. We set out to test the hypothesis that pubs from more deprived areas and non food-serving pubs have higher levels of particulate air pollution. Methods: We conducted a cross sectional study in four mainly urban areas of the North West of England. We recruited a stratified random sample of 64 pubs divided into four groups based on whether their local population was affluent or deprived (using a UK area based deprivation measure), and whether or not they served food. The timing of air quality monitoring stratified to ensure similar distribution of monitoring by day of the week and time of evening between groups. We used a portable air quality monitor to collect fine particle (PM2.5) levels over a minimum of 30 minutes in areas where smoking was allowed,, and calculated mean time-time weighted average PM2.5 levels. Results: Mean PM2.5 was 285.5 µg/m3 (95% CI 212.7 to 358.3). Mean levels in the four groups were: affluent food-serving pubs (n = 16) 188.1 µg/m3 (95%CI 128.1 to 248.1); affluent non food-serving (n = 16) 186.8 µg/m3 (95%CI 118.9 to 254.3); deprived food-serving (n = 17) 399.4 µg/m3 (95%CI 177.7 to 621.2); and deprived non food-serving (n = 15) 365.7 µg/m3 (195.6 to 535.7). Levels were higher in pubs in deprived communities: mean 383.6 µg/m3 (95% CI 249.2 to 518.0) vs 187.4 µg/m3 (144.8 to 229.9); geometric mean 245.2 µg/m3 vs 151.2 µg/m3 (p = 0.03). There was little difference in particulate levels between food and non food-serving pubs. Conclusion: This study adds to the evidence that the UK government’s proposals for partial smokefree legislation in England would offer the least protection to the most heavily exposed group - bar workers and customers in non food- serving pubs in deprived areas. The results suggest these proposals would work against the UK government’s stated aim to reduce health inequalities. Page 1 of 6 (page number not for citation purposes)