The Innocent Victims of Second-Hand Smoke

Both of my parents grew up in the houses of heavy smokers.  The daily exposure to cigarette smoke compromised their household environment and long term health.  Even today, they continue to feel the consequences of long term exposure to smoke.  Exposure to second hand smoke is serious, as it effects innocent nonparticipants including family, friends, and any one who breathes the same air.  A study, “Non smoking wives of heavy smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer: a study from Japan.” revealed just how serious passive exposure to smoke truly is. 

The study focussed on the effects of second hand smoke on the wives of smoking husbands.  However, the wives themselves were nonsmokers. It was found that the rate of lung cancer increases with an increase in exposure to passive smoke, so that women in the first group had the highest rates of lung cancer. No correlation between passive smoking and other forms of cancer, such as cervical, breast, or stomach was found.  

The study also compared those living in urban versus rural areas and found that, surprisingly, those living on farms hard a higher rate of lung cancer.  It was deduced that this was probably a result of exposure; wives in urban settings on average spend less time with their husbands than do wives in rural areas.  Therefore, the latter group has greater exposure time to cigarette smoke, thus increasing their chance for lung cancer. 

This study was conducted as a cohort study, which provided it with many advantages.  Researchers were able to observe the development of its subjects over an extended period of time, thus better controlling for outside variables. Bias in studies sometimes cause a miscorrelation between association and causation.  However, this study minimized its bias by controlling for as many factors as possible.   Occupation, age, alcohol consumption and marital status were all considered during the study.  How heavy the husband smoked was also considered, so the subjects were divided accordingly into three groups: wives of heavy, moderate, or light/ex smokers.  They were then considered within the context of these groups.  Small sample size can also occasionally skew results, but this study avoided the problem by following a large group of women.  The results of this study can be confidently cleared of any suspicions of bias to ultimately reveal that second hand smoke is a cause of lung cancer.

Carcinogens from cigarette smoke in the air, present at any level in the environment, creates a risk for everyone.  Since clean air is a fundamental concern of environmental health, this poses a major concern. Of course, risk increases as exposure increases, so strict regulations must be established to decrease exposure and risk.  Smoking causes risk for not only those who are directly involved, but for everyone who breathes common air, which causes many innocent victims of lung cancer every year.  Toxins in the air from cigarette smoke can only be reduced through public health efforts, policy implications, and structural societal changes.  Only then will innocent victims, such as the Japanese wives, be spared from an unnecessary death from lung cancer.