Smoking in Canadian Homes Are Children at Risk?

In 1996-97, nearly 1.6 million Canadian children under the age of 12 were regularly exposed to cigarette smoke at home. This amounts to one third of all children in this age group (Table 1). Not surprisingly, children’s exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is very strongly influenced by the presence of a household member who smokes daily: 85% of young children who live with a daily smoker are regularly exposed to ETS (Table 1). In short, if there is a smoker in the household, the chances are very high that children in the same household will live in a polluted environment.