Research claims that children worldwide lose 8.45 million days of healthy life every year due to second-hand smoking.
The findings were presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It claimed that children from low socio-economic regions are the ones who face the biggest impact of breathing in second-hand smoke, which is known as passive smoking.
Effect of Second-Hand Smoking on Children's Health
Assistant Professor in the School of Clinical Medicine at Hangzhou Normal University, Dr. Siyu Dai, presented the study. She told Congress that second-hand smoke is a "major contributor" to preventable illness and death among children.
Dai added that second-hand smoking is linked to chest infections, cardiovascular disease, and neurodevelopmental problems. Additionally, it causes asthma symptoms to become worse for those who inhale the smoke. Young children, in particular, are susceptible due to their bodies and lungs still developing.
The assistant professor noted that data taken from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that second-hand smoke exposure causes roughly 1.2 million premature deaths every year. This number includes roughly 65,000 children under the age of 15 years, according to News Medical.
Dai and her colleague, Miss Ruiying Jin, analyzed data from the Global Burden of Disease Study, which is a large international project. It tracks deaths and illnesses from major diseases, injuries, and risk factors worldwide.
One of the key measures of the study is the disability-adjusted life year (DALY), which is a representation of the total burden of disease. One DALY is equal to one year of healthy life lost, whether that be from dying too early or living with illness or disability.
A Contributing Factor to Diseases and Illnesses
When Dai looked at data across more than 200 countries and territories, she estimated the years lost to second-hand smoke across major disease categories from 1990 to 2021 among children aged zero to 14 years, the Medical Xpress reported.
Dai then compared the data she found to the Socio-demographic Index, which puts together information on the economy, education, and fertility rate of nations around the world. This is a representation of the social and economic development of these countries.
What she found is that in 2021, second-hand smoke exposure contributed to about 3.79 million DALYs from lower respiratory infections, 0.80 million from ear infections, and 3.86 million from chest infections and tuberculosis among kids worldwide.
The researchers in the latest findings discovered that second-hand smoke continues to pose a serious health risk to children around the world. However, they also found that the problem is even more severe in poorer regions, where the rates of disease burden were much higher, as per Ersnet.
