"Dissertation proposal: Passive Smoking and Its impact on Children 1 Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 3Research Question ................................................................................................................... 3Aim and Objectives .................................................................................................................. 3Literature review ..................................................................................................................... 4Passive smoking and the problems caused by it for the society members ............................. 4Comparison of smoke produced at home and in the street and its worst effect on the healthof the children ........................................................................................................................ 5Impact of passive smoking on the health of children ............................................................. 6Governmental efforts for the prevention and elimination of passive smoking ...................... 6Research methodology ............................................................................................................. 7References ................................................................................................................................. 9 2 IntroductionSmoking is often considered the main cause of many respiratory diseases. Thepractice of smoking often causes harmful impact in active as well as passive form. Themainstream smoke, when inhaled by a smoker, causes various respiratory problems to thehealth of the smoker. Side stream smoke, on the other hand, produced while smoking isproblematic to other people who passively breathe the smoke from the atmosphere (Zeise &Dunn, 2000).The side stream smoke released into the atmosphere is often harmful to thehealth of people which is inhaled by them in the open atmosphere. This is often known aspassive smoking and is very hazardous to the health of small children as smoke contains alarge number of chemical carcinogens and other toxic substances (Zeise & Dunn, 2000). Smoking in public places produces a mixture of dangerous chemicals in the generalenvironment. Almost half the world?s children are often exposed to smoke produced fromburning of tobacco at public places and smoke produced at home. Environmental smokecauses several respiratory infections and other illness in young children who inhale in theirnormal act of breathing from the atmosphere (Carrington, 2002). Moreover, it is the mainresponsibility of parents to protect their children from smoking by restraining them fromsmoke at home, especially in front of children (Carrington, 2002).In this context, the mainfocus of the research study will be to examine the problem caused by passive smoking, alongwith its effects on children. Research QuestionThe research question for the study will be „What is the impact of passive smoking onthe health of children??Aim and ObjectivesThe aim of the research study will be to explore the consequences of passive smokingon the health of children. The aim of the research study is to examine the concept of passive 3 smoking, along with its hazardous effects on the health of young children. This aim will beachieved in a successful manner by the attainment of the following objectives:? To explore the concept of passive smoking and problems caused to members of thesociety? To examine the impact of passive smoking on the health of children.? To investigate and examine the most hazardous smoke produced, i.e., from home or inthe street causing worst effect on the health of children. ? To assess different governmental efforts taken with regard to the prevention andelimination of passive smoking.Literature reviewPassive smoking and the problems caused by it for the society membersLinda Brannon and Jess Feist (2009) suggested that passive smoking is theinvoluntary and uncontrolled inhalation of air infected by smoke (Brannon and Feist, 2009).In other words, it is the smoke that a person inhales when others smoke. When someonesmokes a cigarette, the released smoke can stay in the air for up to two hours even in the openenvironment. Smoke may still be present in a huge amount even after the person has stoppedsmoking. Tobacco smoke consists of more than five thousand poisonous and addictivechemicals like nicotine, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde.It has adverse effects on bothsmokers and non-smokers and it is mainly harmful for children. Smokers have a high risk ofdeveloping various cardiovascular problems, whereas non-smokers may face chronicexposure and impaired cardiac performance with acute exposure (Topol and Califf, 2007).Frequent exposure to smoke may increase the risk of lung cancer and coronary heart diseaseeven if a person is a non-smoker. Coronary heart disease can lead to heart attacks, angina(chest pain), heart failure and heart stroke.4 People, who are regularly exposed to passive smoke, are more likely to developobstructive pulmonary disease, which has an adverse effect on breathing. Children, who areexposed to passive smoke, are at a high risk of developing a number of serious conditionsincluding bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, coughing, wheezing and middle ear infections(Goldman and Hatch 2000). Over exposure of passive smoking can also reduce children?sability to smell and decrease the mental development. Both smoking and passive smoking canseriously affect pregnant ladies and their developing foetus. It increases the risk ofmiscarriage, premature birth, sudden unexpected death, fatal sleep accidents and stillbirth offoetus in pregnant ladies.Comparison of smoke produced at home and in the street and its worst effect on the health ofthe children In the opinion of Jacoby et al. (2008) smoke released into the atmosphere through thepractice of smoking is known to be the main cause of several respiratory diseases in children.Various researches have shown that environmental smoke released by smokers is the majorcause of various illnesses in children. Passive smoking is linked to a number of serious ill- effects on the health of adults like lung cancer and heart diseases. However, it is attributed toaffect severely the health of children causing asthma, bronchitis and sudden infant deathsyndrome (Jacoby et al., 2008).The author further stated that household smoke, produced by parents and otherhousehold members is also known to be the major source of exposure to children as theyspend most of their time at home and indoors. Children are not aware of dangers of smokeproduced from smoking, and thus, do not take adequate prevention to restrain them from theenvironmental smoke exposure. Thus, passive smoking at home is known to produce theworst effect on the health of millions of children who live with smokers. Children and infants 5 "