How does cigarette smoke affect indoor air quality?
Secondhand smoke, or environmental tobacco smoke, impacts indoor air quality. It is a combination of the smoke that the user exhales after taking a puff from a cigarette (mainstream smoke) and what comes from the lit tip of the cigarette while no one is puffing on it (sidestream smoke). Cigarette smoke is a mixture of more than 6,000 chemicals that are mainly formed or released by the burning and high temperature pyrolysis of tobacco. Cigarette smoke also contains solid carbon-based particles.
Public health authorities, including the World Health Organization, have concluded that secondhand smoke causes diseases, including lung cancer and heart disease, in nonsmoking adults, as well as conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, and sudden infant death syndrome. In addition, public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke can exacerbate adult asthma and cause eye, throat, and nasal irritation.
The public should be informed about these conclusions and guided by them in deciding whether to be in places where secondhand smoke is present or, if they are smokers, when and where to smoke around others. Smokers should not smoke around children or pregnant women.