Second-hand smoke (passive smoking) affects everyone who breathes it. It is a major source of indoor air pollution and can lead to heart disease and lung cancer, as well as make illness like asthma worse.
Harmful health effects include:
- Babies – low birth weight, cot death
- Children – middle ear infection, asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia
- Adults – heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, nasal cancer
Even short-term exposure to second-hand smoke affects health. Spending just 30 minutes in a smoky room is enough to reduce the blood flow to the heart muscle. Babies and children are particularly vulnerable to exposure from second-hand smoke in the home, and 1.1 million children suffer from asthma.
Every year in the UK, more than 600 people die from the effects of exposure to second-hand smoke in the workplace. Hospitality workers are exposed to between four and six times more second-hand smoke than other workers. They have a higher incidence of lung cancer than any other occupation.