WHO: Secondhand Smoke Kills 600,000 a Year

In the first such global study of its kind, the World Health Organization (WHO) has determined that one out of a hundred deaths each year worldwide is caused by secondhand smoke exposure, amounting to about 600,000 deaths a year, Reuters reported Nov. 26.

Overall, 47% of deaths from second-hand smoke occurred in women, 28% in children, and 26% in men.

Researchers led by Dr. Annette Prüss-Üstün of the WHO's Public Health and the Environment Department based their findings on comparative risk assessments from 192 countries, during 2004 — when data were sufficient to assess exposure to secondhand smoke.

Children were most likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke, usually at home. Approximately 165,000 children died per year as a result. Hardest hit were children in poor and middle-income countries, particularly those in Africa and Asia, where infectious disease and tobacco exposure combined to have the deadliest impact on child mortality. 

Conversely, deaths from passive smoking among adults were spread evenly across countries, regardless of living standards.

Prüss-Üstün hoped the findings would serve as a catalyst for countries to enforce the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a global initiative aimed at reducing the burden of tobacco-related disease by increasing taxes on tobacco products, banning tobacco advertising, eliminating smoking in public places, and making packs less commercially attractive.

“Policy-makers should bear in mind that enforcing complete smoke-free laws will probably substantially reduce the number of deaths attributable to exposure to second-hand smoke within the first year of its implementation, with accompanying reduction in costs of illness in social and health systems,” she said.

The study was published online in the Lancet Nov. 26.