'Tobacco smoke is biggest home pollutant in Ireland' screams a headline in today's Irish Times.
It's based on a study that compared the impact of tobacco smoking in the home with households that use coal, wood and peat for heating and gas for cooking.
As always there's good news:
Concentrations of air pollution in homes using coal, wood, peat and gas for cooking were low, and mostly well within health-based standards.
And bad news:
The researchers concluded that “exposure to environmental tobacco smoke represents the greatest impact on health from combustion derived air pollution in the home”.
But of course.
[Researchers] then went on to state that the exposure of non-smokers to ETS in the home accounts for a health burden that is “broadly comparable to that currently experienced in both countries from road traffic accidents and there is a real need for public health policy and research professionals to develop interventions to address this”.
See: Tobacco smoke is biggest home pollutant in Ireland
What the Irish Times didn't mention is this. The study was conducted on the following sample group: 20 households that used peat as heating fuel, 20 that used coal, 20 that used wood, 20 that used a gas stove to cook, and 20 that had at least one adult resident smoker (with no other combustion source present).
Of the 20 homes that had "at least one adult resident smoker", eleven were in Galway and nine in and around Aberdeen.
In other words, the claim that 'Tobacco smoke is biggest home pollutant in Ireland' was based on a sample of just eleven households in one Irish city.
See Indoor Air Pollution and Health.
Ignoring this the Irish Times notes that 'the private home remains a last bastion of privilege for smokers' before adding:
[The] report recommends that there should be a co-ordinated national campaign to educate smokers and non-smokers about the health effects of environmental tobacco smoke in the home ...
The report’s authors have called for improved national survey campaigns to determine what proportion of the population is exposed to environmental tobacco smoke at home.
Their recommendations include a co-ordinated national campaign to educate smokers and non-smokers about the health effects from smoking at home and the promotion of smoke-free homes.
Well, we all know where this is going.
How ironic that my Forest colleague John Mallon is currently on tour in Ireland warning people about "creeping prohibition".