Passive smoking


Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called passive smoke, secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke, by individuals other than the active smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke diffuses into the surrounding atmosphere as an aerosol pollutant, which leads to its inhalation by nearby bystanders within the same environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes many of the same health effects caused by active smoking, although at a lower prevalence due to the reduced concentration of smoke that enters the airway.
According to a World Health Organization report published in 2023, more than 1.3 million deaths are attributed to passive smoking worldwide every year. The health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus, and have been a major motivation for smoking bans in workplaces and indoor venues, including restaurants, bars and night clubs, as well as some open public spaces.
Concerns around secondhand smoke have played a central role in the debate over the harms and regulation of tobacco products. Since the early 1970s, the tobacco industry has viewed public concern over secondhand smoke as a serious threat to its business interests. Despite the industry's awareness of the harms of secondhand smoke as early as the 1980s, the tobacco industry coordinated a scientific controversy with the purpose of stopping regulation of their products.

Terminology

created the term "passive smoking" in a publication in the German language during the 1930s. Terms used include "environmental tobacco smoke" to refer to the airborne matter, while "involuntary smoking" and "passive smoking" refer to exposure to secondhand smoke. The term "environmental tobacco smoke" can be traced back to a 1974 industry-sponsored meeting held in Bermuda, while the term "passive smoking" was first used in the title of a scientific paper in 1970. The Surgeon General of the United States prefers to use the phrase "secondhand smoke" rather than "environmental tobacco smoke", stating that "The descriptor 'secondhand' captures the involuntary nature of the exposure, while 'environmental' does not." Most researchers consider the term "passive smoking" to be synonymous with "secondhand smoke". In contrast, a 2011 commentary in Environmental Health Perspectives argued that research into "thirdhand smoke" renders it inappropriate to refer to passive smoking with the term "secondhand smoke", which the authors stated constitutes a pars pro toto.
The term "sidestream smoke" is sometimes used to refer to smoke that goes into the air directly from a burning cigarette, cigar, or pipe, while "mainstream smoke" refers to smoke that a smoker exhales.

Health effects

Secondhand smoke causes many of the same diseases as direct smoking, including cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases. These include:
  • Cancer:
  • * General: overall increased risk; reviewing the evidence accumulated on a worldwide basis, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2004 that "Involuntary smoking is carcinogenic to humans." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 70 chemicals present in secondhand smoke are carcinogenic.
  • * Lung cancer: Passive smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer. In the United States, secondhand smoke is estimated to cause more than 7,000 deaths from lung cancer a year among non-smokers. A quarter of all cases occur in people who have never smoked.
  • * Breast cancer: The California Environmental Protection Agency concluded in 2005 that passive smoking increases the risk of breast cancer in younger, primarily premenopausal females by 70% and the US Surgeon General has concluded that the evidence is "suggestive", but still insufficient to assert such a causal relationship. In contrast, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2004 that there was "no support for a causal relation between involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke and breast cancer in never-smokers." A 2015 meta-analysis found that the evidence that passive smoking moderately increased the risk of breast cancer had become "more substantial than a few years ago".
  • * Cervical cancer: A 2015 overview of systematic reviews found that exposure to secondhand smoke increased the risk of cervical cancer.
  • * Bladder cancer: A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis found that secondhand smoke exposure was associated with a significant increase in the risk of bladder cancer.
  • Circulatory system: risk of heart disease and reduced heart rate variability.
  • * Epidemiological studies have shown that both active and passive cigarette smoking increase the risk of atherosclerosis.
  • * Passive smoking is strongly associated with an increased risk of stroke, and this increased risk is disproportionately high at low levels of exposure.
  • Lung problems:
  • * Risk of asthma
  • * Risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
  • * According to a 2015 review, passive smoking may increase the risk of tuberculosis infection and accelerate the progression of the disease, but the evidence remains weak.
  • * The majority of studies on the association between secondhand smoke exposure and sinusitis have found a significant association between the two.
  • Cognitive impairment and dementia: Exposure to secondhand smoke may increase the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in adults 50 and over. Children exposed to secondhand smoke show reduced vocabulary and reasoning skills when compared with non-exposed children as well as more general cognitive and intellectual deficits.
  • Mental health: Exposure to secondhand smoke is associated with an increased risk of depressive symptoms.
  • During pregnancy:
  • * Miscarriage: a 2014 meta-analysis found that maternal secondhand smoke exposure increased the risk of miscarriage by 11%.
  • * Low birth weight, part B, ch. 3.
  • * Premature birth, part B, ch. 3 Laws limiting smoking decrease premature births.
  • * Stillbirth and congenital malformations in children
  • * Recent studies comparing females exposed to secondhand smoke and non-exposed females, demonstrate that females exposed while pregnant have higher risks of delivering a child with congenital abnormalities, longer lengths, smaller head circumferences, and neural tube defects.
  • General:
  • * Worsening of asthma, allergies, and other conditions. A 2014 systematic review and meta-analysis found that passive smoking was associated with a slightly increased risk of allergic diseases among children and adolescents; the evidence for an association was weaker for adults.
  • * Type 2 diabetes. It remains unclear whether the association between passive smoking and diabetes is causal.
  • Risk of carrying Neisseria meningitidis or Streptococcus pneumoniae.
  • A possible increased risk of periodontitis.
  • Overall increased risk of death in both adults, where it was estimated to kill 53,000 nonsmokers per year in the U.S in 1991, and in children. The World Health Organization states that passive smoking causes about 600,000 deaths a year, and about 1% of the global burden of disease. As of 2017, passive smoking causes about 900,000 deaths a year, which is about 1/8 of all deaths caused by smoking.
  • Skin conditions: A 2016 systematic review and meta-analysis found that passive smoking was associated with a higher rate of atopic dermatitis.

    Risk to children

  • Sudden infant death syndrome. In his 2006 report, the US Surgeon General concludes: "The evidence is sufficient to infer a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke and sudden infant death syndrome." Secondhand smoking has been estimated to be associated with 430 SIDS deaths in the United States annually.
  • Asthma. Secondhand smoke exposure is also associated with an almost doubled risk of hospitalization for asthma exacerbation among children with asthma.
  • Lung infections, also including more severe illness with bronchiolitis and bronchitis, and worse outcome, as well as increased risk of developing tuberculosis if exposed to a carrier. In the United States, it is estimated that secondhand smoke has been associated with between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year.
  • Impaired respiratory function and slowed lung growth
  • Allergies
  • Maternal passive smoking increases the risk of non-syndromic orofacial clefts by 50% among their children.
  • Learning difficulties, developmental delays, executive function problems, and neurobehavioral effects. Animal models suggest a role for nicotine and carbon monoxide in neurocognitive problems.
  • Increased risk of middle ear infections.
  • Invasive meningococcal disease.
  • Anesthesia complications and some negative surgical outcomes.
  • Sleep disordered breathing: Most studies have found a significant association between passive smoking and sleep disordered breathing in children, but further studies are needed to determine whether this association is causal.
  • Adverse effects on the cardiovascular system of children.

    Evidence

studies show that non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke are at risk for many of the health problems associated with direct smoking.
In 1992, a review estimated that secondhand smoke exposure was responsible for 35,000 to 40,000 deaths per year in the United States in the early 1980s. The absolute risk increase of heart disease due to ETS was 2.2%, while the attributable risk percent was 23%. A 1997 meta-analysis found that secondhand smoke exposure increased the risk of heart disease by a quarter, and two 1999 meta-analyses reached similar conclusions.
Evidence shows that inhaled sidestream smoke, the main component of secondhand smoke, is about four times more toxic than mainstream smoke. This fact has been known to the tobacco industry since the 1980s, though it kept its findings secret. Some scientists believe that the risk of passive smoking, in particular the risk of developing coronary heart diseases, may have been substantially underestimated.
In 1997, a meta-analysis on the relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and lung cancer concluded that such exposure caused lung cancer. The increase in risk was estimated to be 24% among non-smokers who lived with a smoker. In 2000, Copas and Shi reported that there was clear evidence of publication bias in the studies included in this meta-analysis. They further concluded that after correcting for publication bias, and assuming that 40% of all studies are unpublished, this increased risk decreased from 24% to 15%. This conclusion has been challenged on the basis that the assumption that 40% of all studies are unpublished was "extreme". In 2006, Takagi et al. reanalyzed the data from this meta-analysis to account for publication bias and estimated that the relative risk of lung cancer among those exposed to secondhand smoke was 1.19, slightly lower than the original estimate. A 2000 meta-analysis found a relative risk of 1.48 for lung cancer among men exposed to secondhand smoke, and a relative risk of 1.16 among those exposed to it at work. Another meta-analysis confirmed the finding of an increased risk of lung cancer among women with spousal exposure to secondhand smoke the following year. It found a relative risk of lung cancer of 1.29 for women exposed to secondhand smoke from their spouses. A 2014 meta-analysis noted that "the association between exposure to secondhand smoke and lung cancer risk is well established."
A minority of epidemiologists have found it hard to understand how secondhand smoke, which is more diluted than actively inhaled smoke, could have an effect that is such a large fraction of the added risk of coronary heart disease among active smokers. One proposed explanation is that secondhand smoke is not simply a diluted version of "mainstream" smoke, but has a different composition with more toxic substances per gram of total particulate matter. Passive smoking appears to be capable of precipitating the acute manifestations of cardio-vascular diseases and may also have a negative impact on the outcome of patients who have acute coronary syndromes.
In 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization reviewed all significant published evidence related to tobacco smoking and cancer. It concluded:
Subsequent meta-analyses have confirmed these findings.
The National Asthma Council of Australia cites studies showing that secondhand smoke is probably the most important indoor pollutant, especially around young children:
  • Smoking by either parent, particularly by the mother, increases the risk of asthma in children.
  • The outlook for early childhood asthma is less favourable in smoking households.
  • Children with asthma who are exposed to smoking in the home generally have more severe disease.
  • Many adults with asthma identify ETS as a trigger for their symptoms.
  • Doctor-diagnosed asthma is more common among non-smoking adults exposed to ETS than those not exposed. Among people with asthma, higher ETS exposure is associated with a greater risk of severe attacks.
In France, exposure to secondhand smoke has been estimated to cause between 3,000 and 5,000 premature deaths per year, with the larger figure cited by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin during his announcement of a nationwide smoke-free law: "That makes more than 13 deaths a day. It is an unacceptable reality in our country in terms of public health."
There is good observational evidence that smoke-free legislation reduces the number of hospital admissions for heart disease.