Smoking patterns, quit behaviors, and smoking environment of workers in small manufacturing companies.

Background: This study describes smokers employed at 47 small manufacturing companies in Minnesota, USA.

Methods: Smokers (n = 713) participating in a group-randomized trial completed a baseline survey on their smoking patterns, quit behaviors, smoking environment, workplace attitudes about smoking, and correlates of smoking. These characteristics were examined by job type and a latent class analysis (LCA) was performed to group workers with similar characteristics.

Results: Production workers had the highest prevalence of daily smoking (88% vs. 68% among managers), and addiction (61% vs. 26% among managers), and the highest mean level of perceived stress (6.4 vs. 4.9 among managers). The LCA identified three subgroups of smokers that differed in levels of barriers to cessation. Production workers were most likely to be in the group with greater barriers (P = 0.01).

Conclusions: These results underscore the importance of targeting interventions to production workers and those who exhibit the greatest barriers to cessation.