International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 26, 939-944, Copyright © 1997 by International Epidemiological Association
J Tredaniel, P Boffetta, R Saracci and A Hirsch
BACKGROUND: The causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke
(ETS) and lung cancer is established; however, the magnitude of the risk is
not known. Therefore, it is conceivable that ETS is responsible for a
number of lung cancer deaths because of the large number of smokers and the
widespread presence of ETS. We estimated the number of lung cancer deaths
occurring in 1990 in the European Union (EU), attributable to ETS generated
by a spouse. METHODS: In each country and for each sex, we used the
proportion of smokers and of married people in 1970 to estimate the number
of lung cancer deaths not attributable to tobacco smoking occurring in
married people, assuming a relative risk (RR) for active smoking equal to
10. We then assumed a prevalence of smoking among these deaths equal to the
population at large, and estimated the number of deaths attributable to ETS
based on an RR for ETS of 1.3. Additional analyses were carried out
assuming different values of RR for smoking and exposure to spouse's ETS.
RESULTS: Based on our best assumptions, we calculated that 1146 (839
females, 307 males) lung cancer deaths were attributable to exposure to
spouse's ETS in the EU in 1990. All the hypotheses tested resulted in not
less than several hundred deaths. CONCLUSION: Regardless of the limitations
of this exercise, our results suggest that exposure to spouse's ETS
represents a relatively important public health problem in the EU.
ARTICLES
Non-smoker lung cancer deaths attributable to exposure to spouse's environmental tobacco smoke
Unit of Environmental Cancer Epidemiology, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
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