Attributable mortality and morbidity to second-hand smoke in Europe

• Main Authors: Giulia Carreras, Giuseppe Gorini
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Publishing 2017-05-01
• Series: Tobacco Prevention and Cessation
• Subjects: secondhand smoke; attributable mortality; attributable morbidity
• Online Access: http://www.journalssystem.com/tpc/Attributable-mortality-and-morbidity-to-second-hand-smoke-in-Europe,70210,0,2.html

Introduction To identify methods, diseases, and outcomes for estimating the burden of diseases due to second-hand smoke (SHS) in the 28 European Countries within the Horizon 2020 TackSHS Project. Material and Methods We performed a literature search on studiesof the last 10 years that estimate the burden of disease form SHS at Country level. We selected the diseases with the strongest evidence of a causal association with SHS exposure and with sufficient information, and we identified the relative risks (RR) of mortality/morbidity for exposed to SHS in comparison to non-exposed. Results Eighteen studies were selected. In almost all studies the comparative risk assessment (CRA) method was used, and exposure was assessed through a survey. The diseases mainly studied were: lung cancer (LC), ischemic hearth disease (IHD), and stroke in adults; low birth weight (LBW), sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), lower respiratory tract infection (LRI), otitis media (OM), and asthma in children. Also the burden for breast cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma in adults was studied. The outcomes were number of cases and deaths, disability adjusted life years, and costs. The diseases selected for TackSHS were: LC, IHD, asthma and stroke in adults, and LBW, SIDS, LRI, OM, and asthma in children. The corresponding RRs were identified. Conclusions Although outcomes and diseases change depending on the objective of each study, the CRA methodology and the SHS exposure assessment using surveys are used by almost all the studies and they will be adopted also in TackSHS. Funding This document was developed under the Project TackSHS that received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 681040.