SECONDHAND SMOKE TAKES SERIOUS PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC TOLL

Secondhand smoke claims 42,000 US lives annually, including nearly 900 infants, according to University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) study, taking a serious physical and economic toll on families and communities. The UCSF study, published Thursday, September 20, 2012 in the American Journal of Public Health, is the first of its kind to use a biomarker to measure secondhand cigarette smoke and its physical and economic costs.

 Secondhand smoke results in nearly 600,000 years of potential life lost annually, researchers estimate, and an average of 14.2 years per person with $6.6 billion in lost productivity (amounting to $158,000 per death). Of the 42,000 total deaths resulting from secondhand smoke, 80 percent were white, 13 percent were black, and 4 percent were Hispanic.

The vast majority of deaths were caused by ischemic heart disease. – The researchers used serum cotinine – a biomarker which detects the chemical consequences of exposure to tobacco smoke in the bloodstream – to measure exposure to secondhand smoke. This measurement reflects secondhand exposure in all settings, not just home or work, the authors wrote. Mortality was measured in two conditions for adults: lung cancer and ischemic heart disease; and four conditions for infants: sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, respiratory distress syndrome, and other respiratory conditions of newborns.

 “In general, fewer people are smoking and many have made lifestyle changes, but our research shows that the impacts of secondhand smoke are nonetheless very large,” said lead author Wendy Max, PhD, professor of health economics at the UCSF School of Nursing and co-director of the UCSF Institute for Health & Aging. “The availability of information on biomarker-measured exposure allows us to more accurately assess the impact of secondhand smoke exposure on health and productivity.”