Secondhand smoke exposure in outdoor children’s playgrounds in 11 European countries
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Tobacco presence in outdoor children’s playgrounds is concerning not only because it leads to secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure, but also cigarette butt pollution and tobacco normalization. This study aimed to assess SHS exposure in children’s playgrounds, according to area-level socioeconomic status (SES), smoke-free regulations, national smoking prevalence, and SHS exposure prevalence in playgrounds (2017–2018). We monitored vapor-phase nicotine concentration and tobacco-related variables in 20 different playgrounds in 11 European countries (n = 220 measurements) from March 2017 to April 2018. Playgrounds were selected according to area-level SES. Data on the number of people smoking, and cigarette butts inside the playground and on playground surroundings (<1 m away) were recorded. Playground smoking bans, the Tobacco Control Scale (TCS) score, national smoking prevalence and SHS exposure prevalence in playgrounds were used to group countries. To determine nicotine presence, we dichotomized concentrations using the limit of quantification as a cut-off point (0.06 μg/m3). Nicotine median concentrations were compared using non-parametric tests, and nicotine presence and tobacco-related observational variables using the Chi-squared test. Airborne nicotine presence was found in 40.6% of the playgrounds. Median nicotine concentration was <0.06 μg/m3 (Interquartile range: <0.06–0.125) and higher median concentrations were found in more deprived neighborhoods, non-regulated playgrounds, in countries with lower overall TCS scores, higher national smoking prevalence and higher SHS exposure prevalence in playgrounds. Overall, people were smoking in 19.6% of the playgrounds. More than half of playgrounds had cigarette butts visible inside (56.6%) and in the immediate vicinity (74.4%). Presence of butts inside playgrounds was higher in sites from a low area-level SES, in countries with low TCS scores, and greater smoking prevalence and SHS exposure prevalence (p<0.05). There is evidence of SHS exposure in children’s playgrounds across Europe. These findings confirm the need for smoking bans in playgrounds and better enforcement in those countries with smoking bans in playgrounds.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".