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Indoor Air Quality

Protect Your Family from Secondhand Smoke

What is Secondhand Smoke?

Breathing the smoke from someone else’s cigarettes is called passive smoking or secondhand smoke. Exposure to secondhand smoke can occur in the home, workplace, social settings, and public places. More than 40 percent of children under 12 years of age live in a home with at least one smoker. Thirty-seven percent of nonsmoking adults live with someone who smokes, or they are exposed to smoke in the workplace.

Health Effects of Secondhand Smoke

We have heard of the health problems smokers experience, such as lung cancer and heart disease. However, breathing secondhand smoke can also cause cancer. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,000 lung caner deaths each year in nonsmoking adults.

It is less well known that secondhand smoke can cause serious health problems for children exposed to it. Some of those health problems include:

• an increased risk of bronchitis and pneumonia
• chronic ear infections
• irritation of the upper respiratory tract and slower lung development
• more frequent asthma attacks and more severe symptoms among children with asthma
• an increased risk for developing asthma among children who have not previously had asthma
• irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat
• longer recovery time from colds and other illnesses
• more days of school missed due to illness

The health risk to infants begins even before a baby is born. Pregnant smokers have more miscarriages and more premature births. The risk of having a low birth-weight infant is doubled, increasing both the risk of infant mortality and future health problems.

How Can We Reduce Our Exposure to Secondhand Smoke?

• Do not allow smoking in your home or in your car.
• Choose child-care providers and babysitters who do not smoke around the children.
• Do not expose children to smoking at social occasions, while conducting business, or in public places.
• Ask school administrators to ban smoking from school events.
• Ask 4-H leaders, scout leaders, and others who teach children not to smoke when children are present.
• Ask employers to ban smoking inside the workplace.
• Choose nonsmoking sections at restaurants, or choose restaurants that do not allow smoking.
• Minimize time spent in businesses that allow smoking.
• Minimize time spent indoors with friends who smoke.

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Adapted by Janie L. Harris, M.Ed., CRS, Extension Housing and Environment Specialist, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Texas A&M System. 1999.

Last updated: 26 July, 2010

Educational programs of the Texas AgriLife Extension Service are open to all people without regard to race, color, sex, disability, religion, age, or national origin.