FACT AND FIGURES

What about those around you?
It's not just you the smoke gets inside


Secondhand Smoking

Fact 1

Smoke is harmful to everyone. When you breathe in other people’s tobacco smoke it gets deep down into your lungs and into every cell in your body. This is called passive or secondhand smoking. This means that when you smoke your friends and family smoke too.

This was the reason behind the changes in the law in 2007.

Fact 2

Before this law changed, a study of air quality in bars across England found that the air quality was lower than that which is accepted as being healthy. After the change in the law, the same study found that the level of these dangerous particles fell by 91% to that seen before the change and was even comparable to the quality found in outdoor air1.

Fact 3

In Camden a similar smaller study found this reduction before and after the law change to be 54%, again taking the quality of air from above what is the accepted level as being unhealthy to below this level.

Fact 4

Another study in Camden found that bar workers reported lower frequency of wheezing, shortness of breath and eye irritation.

Fact 5

Being in a smoky room for even half an hour can make breathing more difficult and less blood flow through the heart2. Even when the smoke disappears, your loved ones are still breathing in the harmful chemicals that stay in the air, sticking to the clothes and furnishings.

Fact 6

You might be shocked to hear that anyone exposed to secondhand smoke in the home has a much higher risk of heart and lung disease 3 Breathing in other people’s smoke causes around 8,000 deaths a year among people aged 65 or older and more than 17,000 kids under five go to hospital every year because of smoking related illnesses, like middle-ear infections and asthma 45 But help is at hand to reduce this exposure to secondhand smoke with the Smokefree Homes campaign.

What is the Smokefree Homes Campaign?

To help protect children from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, Smokefree Camden and Sure Start Camden are helping local families to make their home smokefree. This is because babies and children are most sensitive to cigarette smoke6.

What are the options?

The best thing to do is sign up to the Gold Plus Promise but if you don’t feel ready to stop smoking you can sign up to either the Gold, Silver or Bronze promise to help you on your way of becoming totally smokefree:

  • Gold Plus Promise
    Make your home totally smokefree at all times and stop smoking with help from Smokefree Camden.
  • Gold Promise
    Make your home totally smoke free at all times.
  • Silver Promise
    Allow smoking only in one well-ventilated room and never in the presence of children.
  • Bronze Promise
    Never smoke in the presence of children.

Click Smokefree Homes to download a copy of the form or for further information about this project, call Smokefree Camden on freephone 0800 10 70 401 or e-mail: smokefreecamden@camdenpct.nhs.uk

For more information about Sure Start, visit their website at www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/education/childcare/sure-start

If you are a mum-to-be you have twice the reason to be protected from smoke, for your own health and to protect your child from premature birth and miscarriage5. (link to specialist advisor)

And your pet smokes too...

Your pet also breathes in the smoke in your home. So, they are also exposed to all the chemicals in the cigarette that cause cancer, lung and heart disease 78.

One more reason to quit… Hundreds of families each year are left without a loved one who has died from breathing in secondhand smoke. So, for the sake of those around you that you love; your partner, mum and dad, kids, mates and pets, the next time you light up, think hard about whether that little stick is worth the cost.

  1. 1. DH Smokefree England One Year On (2008)
  2. 2. Otsuka, R. Acute effects of passive smoking on the coronary circulation in healthy young adults. JAMA 2001; 286: 436-441
  3. 3. Jamrozik, K. Estimate of deaths among adults in the United Kingdom attributable to passive smoking. BMJ 2005, published online 1st March 2005
  4. 4. Smoking and the Young. Royal College of Physicians, 1992
  5. 5. US Department of Health and Human Services (2001). Women and smoking: a report of the Surgeon General. US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General: Rockville, MD
  6. 6. Smoking and the Young. Royal College of Physicians, 1992
  7. 7. Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Risk of Malignant Lymphona in Pet Cats. Bertone, E.R., Snyder, L.A. and Moore, A.S. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2002; 156: 268-273.
  8. 8. Reif, J.S., Bruns, C. and Kimberty, S. Lower cancer of the Nasal Cavity and Paranasal Sinuses and Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke in Pet Dogs. American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 147, 5: 488-492