THE HEALTH COMMUNITY has been concerned about the health effects of smoking on smokers for over two decades. With recent reports by the Surgeon General' and the National Academy of Sciences,2 a consensus has emerged that smoking also endangers nonsmokers who breathe secondhand smoke (table 1). Although there are always more details to learn, these reports effectively close the scientific case a...

BACKGROUND Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure has been identified as a cause of asthma and a trigger of asthma attacks in children. We examined the relation of demographic and tobacco-related risk factors to both lifetime asthma diagnosis and the asthma attack rate among Wisconsin adolescents. The impact of asthma on adolescent school absenteeism was also examined. METHODS Data used w...

THE HEALTH COMMUNITY has been concerned about the health effects of smoking on smokers for over two decades. With recent reports by the Surgeon General' and the National Academy of Sciences,2 a consensus has emerged that smoking also endangers nonsmokers who breathe secondhand smoke (table 1). Although there are always more details to learn, these reports effectively close the scientific case a...

Secondhand smoke is associated with a myriad of adverse health outcomes. Therefore, it is essential for clinicians to ask precise questions about exposures, particularly for children. We present 4 questions that incorporate several locations of exposure and provide a more comprehensive account of children's smoke exposures than maternal smoking alone.

THE HEALTH COMMUNITY has been concerned about the health effects of smoking on smokers for over two decades. With recent reports by the Surgeon General' and the National Academy of Sciences,2 a consensus has emerged that smoking also endangers nonsmokers who breathe secondhand smoke (table 1). Although there are always more details to learn, these reports effectively close the scientific case a...

Nasal mucociliary clearance (NMC) is a biomarker of nasal mucosal function. Tobacco smokers have been shown to have abnormal NMC, but the acute effect of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on nonsmokers is unknown. This study evaluated acute tobacco smoke-induced alterations in NMC in 12 healthy adults. Subjects were studied on 2 days, separated by at least 1 week. Subjects underwent a 60-min co...

BACKGROUND A number of epidemiologic studies have suggested that every year environmental tobacco smoke (second-hand smoke) is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, mostly from heart disease, in the United States. Environmental tobacco smoke is composed mainly (80% to 85%) of aged and diluted sidestream smoke. The remainder is exhaled mainstream smoke. Among the thousands of compounds th...

OBJECTIVE To assess to what extent Nordic parents strive to protect their children from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) at home. DESIGN A cross-sectional study using an anonymous questionnaire. SUBJECTS AND SETTING A stratified, random sample of 5500 households containing a child born during 1992, including 1500 households in Denmark and 1000 households in each of the countries of Finland...