German Environment Agency (UBA), Berlin/Dessau-Roßlau, Germany.
German Environment Agency (UBA), Berlin/Dessau-Roßlau, Germany.
Environ Res. 2023 Jan 1;216(Pt 1):114320. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2022.114320. Epub 2022 Sep 12.
Passive smoking is a preventable and significant cause of many serious health problems, with children being particularly at risk. In the fifth German Environmental Survey (GerES V), conducted from 2014 to 2017, information reflecting the extent of passive smoke exposure in children and adolescents was collected by interview-based questionnaires and human biomonitoring (HBM) analyses of cotinine in urine from 2260 participants, aged 3-17 years. Based on these population-representative data, we describe current passive smoke exposure stratified by different subgroups and identify specific exposure determinants using multivariate logistic regression. The questionnaire data revealed that 42% of children and adolescents lived with at least one smoker in the household. Quantifiable concentrations of cotinine could be detected in 56% of the participants. The overall median concentration of cotinine was 0.2 μg/L, with children and adolescents of low socioeconomic status found to be a group particularly affected by passive smoke with higher cotinine concentrations (median = 1.2 μg/L). In the multiple analysis, the most significant predictor of cotinine levels derived from the questionnaire was passive smoking at home (odds ratio (OR) 13.07 [95CI: 4.65, 36.70]). However, parental smoking and passive smoking among friends and relatives could also be identified as independent factors influencing elevated cotinine levels. The comparison between the previous cycle GerES IV (2003-2006) on 3-14-year-olds and GerES V shows that tobacco smoke exposure of children decreased significantly. This decrease is likely an effect of extensive non-smoker protection laws being enforced 2007-2008 on federal and state level. This is reflected by a halving of urinary cotinine concentrations. Nevertheless, our results indicate that passive smoke is still a relevant source of harmful pollutants for many children and adolescents in Germany, and thus support the need for further efforts to reduce passive smoke exposure, especially in the private environment.
被动吸烟是许多严重健康问题的可预防和重要原因，儿童尤其处于风险之中。在 2014 年至 2017 年进行的第五次德国环境调查（GerES V）中，通过基于访谈的问卷和尿液中天宁酸的人体生物监测（HBM）分析，收集了反映儿童和青少年被动吸烟程度的信息，共有 2260 名 3-17 岁的参与者参与。基于这些具有代表性的人群数据，我们根据不同的亚组描述了当前的被动吸烟暴露情况，并使用多变量逻辑回归识别了特定的暴露决定因素。问卷数据显示，42%的儿童和青少年与至少一名吸烟者同住。在 56%的参与者中可以检测到可量化的天宁酸浓度。参与者的总中位数天宁酸浓度为 0.2μg/L，发现社会经济地位较低的儿童和青少年受到被动吸烟的影响特别大，天宁酸浓度更高（中位数=1.2μg/L）。在多元分析中，来自问卷的天宁酸水平的最显著预测因子是家庭中的被动吸烟（比值比（OR）13.07[95%CI：4.65，36.70]）。然而，父母吸烟和朋友及亲属中的被动吸烟也被确定为影响天宁酸水平升高的独立因素。与之前的周期 GerES IV（2003-2006 年）对 3-14 岁儿童的比较表明，儿童的烟草烟雾暴露显著减少。这种减少可能是 2007-2008 年在联邦和州一级实施广泛的非吸烟者保护法的结果。这反映在尿液中天宁酸浓度减半。然而，我们的结果表明，被动吸烟仍然是德国许多儿童和青少年的一个相关有害污染物来源，因此支持需要进一步努力减少被动吸烟暴露，特别是在私人环境中。
