Background: Little is known of the impact of the work environment on smoking among women holding low-paid jobs in the service sector.
Purpose: To study the associations between the components of the demand-control model with smoking in hotel room cleaners.
Methods: We conducted a survey on work and health among 776 female hotel room cleaners in Las Vegas. Associations between psychosocial work characteristics and smoking were analyzed with multivariate regression analyses.
Results: Psychosocial work characteristics were associated with smoking after adjustment for covariates. Effect estimates were substantially reduced by additional adjustment for ethnicity, but remained significant for high psychological demands and smoking prevalence (OR = 1.97, p = 0.02), high job strain and smoking prevalence (OR = 1.87, p = 0.04), and high job strain and smoking intensity (coefficient = 3.52, p = 0.03). When analyses were restricted to Hispanic workers and further adjusted for place of birth, low decision latitude (coefficient = 3.94, p = 0.04) and high job strain (coefficient = 4.57, p = 003) were associated with smoking intensity but not with smoking status.
Conclusion: Workplace smoking cessation programs may benefit from a primary prevention component reducing job strain among service workers. More research is needed on perceived and objective differences in psychosocial work characteristics across ethnic, immigrant, and other social groups within the same occupation.