The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective:

The burden of lung cancer and ischemic heart disease (IHD) from passive smoking in China in 2002 was estimated and compared to the comparable burdens from active smoking in the same year.

Methods:

The disease burden was estimated in both mortality and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). Rates of disease risk observed in meta-analyses of epidemiologic studies in China were used for lung cancer and IHD risks among smokers and for lung cancer among nonsmokers; the rates for passive smoking IHD risks reported throughout the world were used to estimate this burden of disease. The prevalence of smoking in China were determined from surveys in 1984 and 1996; the latter survey also collected information on passive smoking.

Results:

Active smoking caused the deaths of 137,000 from lung cancer and around 191,000 adults died from IHD, while passive smoking was responsible for more than 11,000 lung cancer deaths and more than 46,000 IHD deaths. The total DALYs lost from passive smoking for the two diseases combined were close to half a million, which was more than 15% of the 2.9 million DALYs caused by active smoking. We concluded that tobacco smoking not only posed serious health hazards for smokers in China but also for non-smokers as well, adding more urgency to the need for measures to be taken immediately to curb the nation's tobacco epidemic.

Research Supported by NIH Grant number is 1 R01 TW05938