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Tobacco Use: Secondhand Smoke
Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can be harmful to health.


Secondhand smoke contains toxic chemicals and causes disease.

  • Secondhand smoke contains toxic and cancer-causing chemicals.
  • Secondhand smoke causes heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults.
  • Secondhand smoke causes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and a number of health conditions in children, including middle ear infections, more severe asthma, and respiratory infections.

About 4 in 10 nonsmokers in the US (40%, or 88 million people) continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke.

  • Almost everyone who lives with somebody who smokes indoors is exposed to secondhand smoke. Children and teens are more likely than adults to live in homes where someone smokes indoors.
  • About 54% of children (aged 3–11 years) are exposed to secondhand smoke. Children are most heavily exposed at home.
  • About 47% of youth (aged 12–19 years) are exposed to secondhand smoke.
  • About 56% of black nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke compared with about 40% of white nonsmokers and 29% of Mexican-American nonsmokers.

Levels of secondhand smoke exposure in the US have greatly dropped during the last 20 years.

  • Nearly 88% of nonsmokers in the US were exposed to secondhand smoke during 1988–1991.
  • That number greatly dropped to about 53% by 1999–2000.
  • About 40% of US nonsmokers were exposed to secondhand smoke during 2007–2008.
 
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