Deaths from lung cancer and ischaemic heart disease due to passive smoking in New Zealand

Passive smoking is increasingly recognised as a public health hazard. Among New Zealanders who have never smoked, the prevalence of exposure to spousal smoking has been estimated to be 12.7% for men and 16.1% for women. The prevalence of exposure to passive smoking in the workplace has been estimated to be 33.6% and 23.4% for never smoking men and women respectively. The pooled risk estimates from epidemiological studies of the health effects of passive smoking were used to estimate the numbers of deaths from lung cancer and ischaemic heart disease attributable to passive smoking in New Zealand in 1985. The pooled relative risk estimates for lung cancer mortality were 1.3 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1-1.5) in both men and women exposed to passive smoking at home, and 2.2 (CI 1.4-3.0) in both men and women exposed to passive smoking at work. Using these relative risk estimates, it was calculated that 30 lung cancer deaths (range: 11-41) were attributable to involuntary smoking in New Zealand in 1985. From pooled relative risk estimates of ischaemic heart disease death of 1.3 (CI 1.1-1.6) and 1.2 (CI 1.1-1.4) for exposure to spousal smoking in men and women respectively, it was estimated that a further 91 ischaemic heart disease deaths (range: 39-177) were due to passive smoking at home. The number of ischaemic heart disease deaths due to passive smoking in the workplace was even higher, at 152 (range: 62-224), assuming relative risks of 2.3 (CI 1.4-3.4) and 1.9 (CI 1.4-2.5) for men and women respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)