Children's exposure to second-hand smoke 10 years on from smoke-free legislation in England: Cotinine data from the Health Survey for England 1998-2018.

ABSTRACT:

Background

We aimed to investigate trends in children's exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke in England from 1998 to 2018.

Methods

We used twenty-one years of data from the Health Survey for England, a yearly repeated cross-sectional population study. A total of 49,460 children participated between 1998 and 2018, of whom 17,463 were biochemically confirmed non-smokers aged 4-15. We examined changes in (i) the proportion of children living in reported smoke-free homes and (ii) second-hand smoke uptake, measured quantitatively using saliva cotinine concentration.

Findings

The percentage of children living in a home reported to be smoke-free increased from 63.0% (95% CI 60.5%-65.2%) in 1998 to 93.3% (91.8%-94.6%) in 2018. This increase was most pronounced among children

SUBMITTER: Tattan-Birch H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8819129 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature