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Secondhand smoke is causing heart attacks all over the world. Through this project, Warning: Secondhand Smoke is Hazardous to Your Heart, the Global Smokefree Partnership (GSP) aims to enlist the help of cardiologists to reverse this trend. Their interactions with patients and with policymakers can help save lives.
GSP partners have produced a film and paper to highlight the key facts and the role cardiologists can play in transmitting them to patients, the public, and policymakers. These materials are based on the findings of the Institute of Medicine’s 2009 report, which rigorously analyzed the scientific and academic evidence on the cardiovascular effects of secondhand smoke.
Cardiologists are in a unique position and capable of extraordinary influence. These materials can help them activate that influence by mobilizing colleagues, professional societies and students as well as the broader health, academic and scientific communities to protect heart health by reducing exposure to secondhand smoke.
“The bottom line is that we were able to find a causal association generally between secondhand smoke exposure and cardiovascular disease … and that we could be confident that smoking bans do actually lead to a reduction in heart attacks among nonsmokers.”
— Lynn R. Goldman, MD, Johns Hopkins University
“Smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke endangers the health of 900 million people in China. Even light smokers double their risk of myocardial infarction. If we ban smoking in public places and actively promote quitting, within a year we could expect a dramatic reduction in heart attacks.”