Commentary: Second-hand smoke a health problem for home care workers
STIRLING, United kingdom: Imagine someone walking into a cafe, sitting downward at a table and lighting upwardly a cigarette.
In the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland – and other countries where smoking in indoor public places is banned – that would be virtually unthinkable.
In the 15 years since smoking bans came into effect across Britain, smoking inside has gone from a fact of life to an abnormality, and the nation's health is all the better for information technology. Strokes, middle bug and asthma attacks have all fallen since the bans were introduced, particularly among people who used to spend their working lives in smoky environments.
Even so, smoking isn't banned in all workplaces and lots of workers still exhale in smoke when they're doing their jobs, such equally tradespeople, intendance workers and meter readers.
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THE HOME CAREGIVERS EXPOSED TO 2d-Paw SMOKE
In our recent study, we estimated that around 1 million United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland workers are regularly exposed to 2d-hand smoke while they piece of work. Of those, the most severely affected included home care workers – nurses, carers and other professionals who provide help at abode for those who need it well-nigh.
In the grade of our research, nosotros've seen these workers exposed to levels of smoke higher than those you'd discover during smog in highly polluted cities like Delhi.
Those loftier levels of second-hand fume could be a real problem. Fifty-fifty short periods of exposure to high levels of modest particulates (like those in second-manus smoke) have been linked to heart attacks and other circulatory issues in vulnerable people, as well as asthma attacks.
Over the longer term, regular exposure to fume could increase the gamble of heart disease, lung problems and fifty-fifty stroke.
This seems like a poor reward for someone who spends their life caring for others. That's particularly true when nosotros consider that care workers are frequently badly paid, coming from sections of guild that already suffer health inequalities and experience shorter lifespans.
WHEN SHOULD CARE RECIPIENTS HALT SMOKING?
Many care organisations, including the UK National Health Service (NHS), have policies designed to address these issues. Often this involves asking clients not to smoke for an hour before a care worker attends their abode.
However, nosotros know from our previous research that second-mitt smoke tin can remain in a home at harmful levels for more than 5 hours after a cigarette is smoked – one hour isn't enough to clear the air. And even if it were, our research suggests that this guidance isn't being followed, with smokers lighting upward fifty-fifty when workers are in their homes.
There are serious concerns nearly the wellness of these workers. But in that location is a tension at the heart of this trouble: When your workplace is someone else'due south habitation, whose rights come up outset?
Smokers may choose to smoke at home, especially those with existing health and mobility problems (who are more than likely to receive care) where getting outside is hard.
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Information technology'southward non good for their health (and certainly not for anyone else who lives with them) but information technology'due south their selection and their right. That said, if your job requires you to enter an environment and accept any health risks that come with it, don't you deserve clean air like any other worker?
In that location's no clear, universally adequate mode to balance these two positions. But we need to think clearly well-nigh risks and rights to observe a fashion forward between these two competing ideas: The right to choose what you practice in your own home versus the right of everyone to clean air at work.
COULD MASKS Help?
The pandemic may have changed which solutions people find acceptable. For instance, people are at present fairly comfortable wearing masks indoors. It's possible that wearing high-quality N95 masks could reduce the number of smoke particles that workers breathe to a level that leads to fewer health problems.
But this is difficult to do. Many of the thousands of chemicals in second-manus smoke can't exist filtered out as they're gases rather than solid particles, and so the World Wellness Organization says that there's no such affair every bit a safe level of tobacco smoke.
Yet, for short visits, this might bring the risk down to a more acceptable level.
Other COVID-related changes might include a amend understanding of the effect of ventilation. As it'south become better understood that the virus is airborne, improving building ventilation has risen upwardly the agenda.
That tin be hard in older houses, but some studies have shown success using air cleaners to gainsay small particles in homes – but these devices face some of the aforementioned problems as masks and do little to remove the harmful gases produced past smoking.
(What can exist done to adjourn the problem of 2nd-mitt fume from people who puff away on cigarettes side by side to an open up window at habitation? On the latest episode of Center of the Matter podcast.)
CALLING Fourth dimension ON SMOKING
If this doesn't work, we might demand a more than drastic solution. Given the serious health effects of second-hand smoke exposure and the estimated 800,000 premature deaths information technology causes globally each yr, guild might cull to reject the idea of a "correct to smoke in the home" entirely.
Afterward all, smoking isn't essential even for smokers, with nicotine replacement products and e-cigarettes widely (and cheaply) bachelor, and smokers in the UK are already required to keep individual cars fume-free when children are travelling.
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How we view smoking in the presence of children is changing. In the hereafter, we might see smoking in the dwelling house as unacceptable, given the toxic chemicals it releases into the air.
Smoke-gratis policies not merely benefit those exposed to second-manus smoke – often they lead to smokers kicking the habit. Could all homes go smoke-free one twenty-four hours?
That wouldn't just benefit intendance workers, but also the ane in nine Scottish children currently living in smoky homes. Information technology's difficult to imagine – simply so were fume-free pubs less than two decades ago.
Ruaraidh Dobson is Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Marketing, University of Stirling. Sean Semple is Acquaintance Professor at the same institute. This commentary first appeared in The Conversation.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/second-hand-smoke-home-care-workers-health-harm-249301
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