A study published in Thorax looks at second hand nicotine vaping at home and respiratory symptoms in young adults.
Prof Lion Shahab, Professor of Health Psychology and Co-Director of the UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, University College London (UCL), said:
“This paper reports on the potential impact of secondhand nicotine vape exposure in young adults on respiratory symptoms. After controlling for various potential confounders such as young adult’s own use of cigarettes, e-cigarettes or cannabis as well as secondhand exposure to cigarette or cannabis smoke, young adults who were exposed to secondhand nicotine vaping were more likely to report respiratory symptoms than those who were not. While this finding is worrying and deserves further investigation, the results should be seen in context of the limitations of this study.
“First, as a purely observational study, these findings cannot establish a causal association. There may be other important confounders that may have contributed to these results. For instance, the measure of exposure was limited to the household of young adults and did not include exposure that may occur outside the household (e.g., during socialising with friends), neither did the study control for the type of housing or measure socioeconomic position.
Lion Shahab et al. – Science Media Centre – 2022-01-10.
Want More Investigative Content?
