Issues around bans on hiring smokers
January 25, 2012
(AP file photo)
Hour 2
Pennsylvania's Geisinger Health System recently announced that starting in February it would no longer hire smokers and will screen for nicotine use among new employees. Pennsylvania is one of 20 states that allow bans on hiring smokers. Around the country more and more organizations, particularly hospitals, are embracing non-nicotine hiring policies as a way to promote wellness and save money on employee health care costs. In this hour we’ll look at this trend and the ethical and health implications with guests MICHAEL SIEGEL, professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University's School of Public Health; and PAUL TERPELUK, medical director of Employee Health Services at the Cleveland Clinic, which was the first institution to put in place a nicotine-hiring ban in 2007.
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