Kids inhale second-hand smoke in apartments

Children living in apartments take in more smoke than those living in villas or detached houses, a new study has revealed.

Researchers led by Dr Karen Wilson, Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at University of Rochester Medical Centre’s Golisano Children’s Hospital, found about 85 per cent of children (aged six to 18 years) from families who didn’t smoke inside their apartments had blood proteins indicating exposure to cigarette smoke, compared with 70 per cent in detached houses, according to a report released on Monday by the journal 'Paediatrics', which studied about 5,000 children living in the US.

While these percentages were determined using the most sensitive cut-off for tobacco-smoke exposure, children living in apartments had higher rates of exposure at every cut-off level of cotinine, a chemical regarded as the best biomarker for exposure of non-smokers to environmental tobacco smoke.

Children exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke are at greater risk for a variety of illnesses, such as respiratory infections, asthma and sudden infant death syndrome. It is a known fact that there is no safe level for exposure to second-hand smoke, but the study highlights that neighbours’ smoke travels through ductwork, windows, and ventilation systems, affecting children (and adults) in non-smoking homes.

Moreover, because tobacco fumes drift, the report highlighted that it isn’t necessary for your immediate neighbour to be a smoker for the fumes to affect you.

Even though the study was conducted in the US, the findings should be the same to anywhere in the world, including in the UAE, where laws prohibiting smoking on public transport and public closed places are in effect.

Under the provisions of a law issued earlier this year, no licence is issued to cafés or similar outlets serving any types of tobacco or its products inside residential buildings or quarters or near them.

In the UAE, smoking is also banned during vehicle driving in the company of a child under 12 years. The UAE law sets a series of penalties against offenders, reaching in some cases up to Dh1 million in addition to a jail term of not less than two years.

The study from the University of Rochester Medical Centre, MassGeneral Hospital for Children and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Julius B Richmond Centre for Excellence is the first to show significant evidence of increased tobacco smoke exposure in the blood of children who live in multi-unit housing.

“Parents try so hard to protect their children from dangers, such as tobacco smoke. It’s surprising to see these results and realise that too many parents have no control over whether their children are exposed to second-hand smoke in their own homes,” said Wilson.

“Our results, combined with other studies, provides the basis for us to start saying yes, we really think that…any exposure is dangerous to children,” says Wilson. “Banning smoking in multiunit dwellings by property owners or by regulation would be the obvious way to mitigate contamination,” the researchers wrote.

Previous such studies have documented the extent to which second-hand smoke can show up among non-smokers, but Wilson says the amount of exposure in the children in her study was “a little higher than I expected.”

The data, which was funded by the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute, is particularly disturbing since previous studies have documented that even low levels of cotinine can result in long-term cognitive problems and changes in antioxidant levels that can harm the health of children who are exposed. 

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