Tobacco.org

How Children Are Affected When Parents Smoke At Home, Quit Smoking Support 

Second-hand smoke is unsafe at any dose. This is the message of a new campaign the Health Department launched today to highlight the hazards of environmental tobacco smoke and the importance of having a smoke-free home, especially for children. The developing lungs of young children are severely affected by second-hand smoke, and kids are easily exposed because they have higher breathing rates and little control over their environments.

An estimated 400,000 New York City smokers are adults who live with children. A growing proportion of them have barred smoking within their own homes (the proportion has risen by 55% since 2002), but the City’s most recent Community Health Survey suggests that more than half of adult smokers still lack smoke-free homes.

The Health Department’s new campaign features an ad in which a young girl watches television in her family’s living room while her father smokes a cigarette next to an open kitchen window. As the father inhales, the viewer follows the smoke as it permeates the child’s lungs as well as his own. The tagline: “It’s not only smokers who get sick.”

The ad, which can be viewed online at www.nyc.gov , was produced by Quit Victoria, in Australia. The Health Department adapted it for use in New York City.

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