Secondhand Smoke at Home Affects Your Children’s Health

Published on July 9, 2008 8:21 AM

Secondhand smoke is a toxic combination of carcinogens and poisons. However Robert McMillen, MD says: “Many parents still expose their children to secondhand smoke at home on a regular basis. The vast majority of adults in 2005 – 97% recognized the dangers of exposure to secondhand smoke from parental smoking. Yet a tenth of households – 10% allow indoor smoking in the presence of children.”

Dr. McMillen and his colleagues over the course of 6 summers from 2000 – 2005, conducted telephone inquiries that coincided with the implementation of several national and state tobacco control programs. They included national probable samples of adults from all 50 states and received a response rate of 75 – 87%. Their reported results are optimistic.

Smoking bans increased overall in these areas: Fast-food Restaurants – 77 to 82%, Restaurants – 61 to 71%, Shopping Malls – 71 to 80%, Indoor Sporting Events – 78 to 82%, Outdoor Parks – 25 to 39%.

Actions taken by communities towards smoking bans rose in these areas: Indoor Shopping Malls – 75 to 83%, Convenience Stores – 68 to 80%, Fast-food Restaurants – 52 to 72%, Outdoor Parks – 8 to 15%, Restaurants – 25 to 45%.

Many of the people asked appeared to agree about the dangers of secondhand smoke, especially regarding kids. The researchers say: “While they demonstrate significant improvement in many indicators of adult attitudes and practices, homes serve as settings for intense secondhand smoke exposure, and many public settings that children frequent still are not smoke free.”

Dr. McMillen also adds: “A growing majority of adults in the U.S. favor restrictions on smoking in public settings, suggesting that many communities across the nation have the public support for much broader public smoking restriction policies.”