The Health Effects of Passive Smoking: An Overview of Systematic Reviews Based on Observational Epidemiological Evidence

Shiyi Cao, Chen Yang, Yong Gan and Zuxun Lu

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-12

Abstract: Purpose: We aim to systematically summarize the available epidemiological evidence to identify the impact of environmental tobacco smoke on health. Methods: A systematic literature search of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus for meta-analyses was conducted through January 2015. We included systematic reviews that investigated the association between passive smoking and certain diseases. Quantitative outcomes of association between passive smoking and the risk of certain diseases were summarized. Results: Sixteen meta-analyses covering 130 cohort studies, 159 case-control studies, and 161 cross-sectional studies and involving 25 diseases or health problems were reviewed. Passive smoking appears not to be significantly associated with eight diseases or health problems, but significantly elevates the risk for eleven specific diseases or health problems, including invasive meningococcal disease in children (OR 2.18; 95% CI 1.63–2.92), cervical cancer (OR 1.73; 95% CI 1.35–2.21), Neisseria meningitidis carriage (OR 1.68; 95% CI 1.19–2.36), Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage (OR 1.66; 95% CI 1.33–2.07), lower respiratory infections in infancy (OR 1.42; 95% CI 1.33–1.51), food allergy (OR 1.43; 95% CI 1.12–1.83), and so on. Conclusions: Our overview of systematic reviews of observational epidemiological evidence suggests that passive smoking is significantly associated with an increasing risk of many diseases or health problems, especially diseases in children and cancers.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139907 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 39907&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0139907

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139907

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().