Homes and Cars Related News

Hazards: Run or Hide, Smoke Still Lingers

By: Eric Nagourney
Published: March 9, 2004

Sneaking off to the kitchen for a cigarette or puffing away on the back porch is not enough to protect other household members from secondhand smoke, researchers have found.

Even in homes where smokers made a point of not indulging their habit near others, residue from the smoke was detected on surfaces around the house and in household dust.

This residue, the researchers said, could pose a hazard for young children, who spend much time on the floor and explore things by mouth.

The researchers examined the households of three groups of parents with infants: nonsmokers, people who smoked at home and people who smoked either outside the house or when the children were not there.

The researchers visited the homes three times in a week, collecting dust, taking samples from surfaces and installing air monitors. They also took urine and hair samples from the infants to measure nicotine levels.

The results, they reported in the current issue of the journal Tobacco Control, showed that people who tried to minimize children's exposure by not smoking near them were only partly successful. In those homes, the researchers said, the level of tobacco contaminants was five to seven times as high as in nonsmokers' homes. In homes where people smoked without regard to their proximity to others, the level was three to eight times as high. But the relative levels of nicotine by-products in the infants' urine were comparable.

Dr. Georg E. Matt of San Diego State University, the lead author, said the risks of smoke residue were unproved. But he said that the children were clearly being exposed to unhealthy substances and that while the amounts might be small, they added up.