Environmental Tobacco Smoke — ETS — is a common and harmful form of indoor air pollution. ETS, like mainstream smoke, contains over 4,000 chemicals, including at least 50 chemicals which cause cancer in humans. ETS is a combiantion of two kind of smoke — second-hand and sidestream.Second-hand smoke is the smoke exhaled into the air by smokers.Sidestream smoke comes from the burning end of a cigarette.Sidestream smoke contains higher concentrations of tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide as well as other chemicals that cause cancer, than the smoke inhaled by smokers.
CHILDREN'S EXPOSURE TO ETS
An estimated 2.8 million Canadian children under the age of 15 are exposed to tobacco smoke in their homes.
Thirty-nine per cent of Canadian live in a home with one or more smoker.
Canadian children have an extra high risk of exposure to ETS because they spend 90 per cent of their time indoors due to cold weather.
Canadian homes designed to prevent heat-loss also have less ventilation, so more smoke stays inside the home.
THE EFFECTS OF ETS ON CHILDREN
Children are more vulnerable to ETS than adults for the following reasons:
Being smaller, they often sit near or on parents, other family members or care givers, placing themselves closer to the source of the pollutant than other passive smokers.
Children's bodies absorb proportionally more substances than adults.
Children take in more air — and ETS pollutants — per kilogram of body weight than adults.
Children's biology is less developed than an adult's, so their immune system is less protective.
The cells in children's bodies are still developing and are more vulnerable to chemical alteration than adult cells that are fully developed.
Scientific evidence shows that children exposed to a smoke filled environment:
cough and wheeze more;
are 2 times more likely to experience middle ear effusion, commonly known as fluid in the middle ear;
are estimated to have a 2 times increased of being hospitalized for severe respiratory illnesses (bronchitis and pneumonia);
are more likely to have asthma;
have reduced lung function;
have sore eyes, noses and throats;
are at greater risk of death or injury from house fires caused by careless smoking;
are more likely to become smokers themselves;
(as infants) have a higher chance of dying from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Everybody can play a role in reducing children's exposure to ETS in their community. For this reason, Health Canada and the Canadian Institute of Child Health have developed a resource to assist communities in their efforts to create a smoke-free environment for their children.Helping Our Kids Breathe Easy: A Community Resource to Reduce Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke is a valuable tool for anyone who wishes to implement an ETS reduction campaign.
This resource is divided in five sections:
The Overview section introduces the issues of ETS and children, and explains how to build a Community Coalition.
The Public Education section offers guidance on raising awareness, particularly by using the media and public meetings.
The Community Action section offers advices on effective lobbying, particularly on bylaws and policies for smoke-free environment.
The Individual Program section offers strategies for involving professionals and helping families.
The last section offers a listing of the members of the Canadian Coalition on Environmental Tobacco Smoke Reduction (CCETSR).
Each section includes useful Tip Sheets which offer practical examples and additional information.
This resource is available on computer diskettes on IBM and MacIntosh format and is sold at cost recovery at $4.77 for one diskette, $5.89 for two diskettes, $7.22 for three diskettes and $8.56 for four diskettes (prices include shipping, handling and GST). Each diskette contains both English and French versions.
To order, contact CICH at (613) 224-4144, fax: (613) 224-4145 or e-mail: cich@igs.net
This article was published by the Canadian Institute of Child Health, 1997.
Posted by: the Canadian Institute of Child Health, June 1997.
