Housing Conditions, Neighborhood Physical Environment, and Secondhand Smoke Exposure at Home: Evidence from Chinese Rural-to-Urban Migrant Workers.

Chenghan Xiao,Xiao Ma,Yang Yang,Xiaohe Xu

doi:10.3390/ijerph17082629

Abstract

Over the past two decades, health-related issues among rural-to-urban migrant workers in China have been widely discussed and documented by public health scholars. However, little, if any, scholarly attention has been paid to migrant workers’ secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure at home. This study aims to explore the contours of SHS exposure at home and investigate the effects of inadequate housing conditions and poor neighborhood physical environments on such in-home exposure among Chinese migrant workers. A respondent-driven sampling method was employed to interview 1854 rural-to-urban migrant workers from the period June 2017 to June 2018 in Chengdu, China. The results indicate that Chinese migrant workers are at high risk of SHS exposure at home. Migrant workers who live in homes with inadequate conditions, such as substandard housing and crowdedness, are especially at high risk of SHS exposure at home. Moreover, poor neighborhood physical environments are significantly and positively associated with SHS exposure at home. These findings suggest that strategies that can help improve housing conditions and neighborhood physical environments should be developed and promoted to protect rural-to-urban migrant workers from SHS exposure at home.

Highlights

No risk-free level of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure exists [1]
Of the 1251 rural-to-urban migrant workers who are non-smokers, about 45% reported that they were aware of SHS at home on some days or every day
The results suggest that all inadequate housing conditions significantly increase the odds of higher SHS exposure at home, and all favorable neighborhood physical environments significantly decrease the odds of higher SHS

Summary

Introduction

No risk-free level of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure exists [1]. Even brief exposure can depress the endothelial function, thereby giving rise to long-term vascular damage [2,3]. Past research has documented that the SHS exposure is associated with a wide array of negative health outcomes, such as lung cancer, respiratory symptoms, ear infections, and asthma attacks [4,5]. Given these shreds of evidence, many countries have enacted laws prohibiting smoking in public places to control and reduce SHS exposure. Even though bans on smoking in public places have significantly reduced overall exposure, studies indicate that the prevalence of SHS exposure in homes remains high [6]. With regard to China, the extant literature on smoke-free homes suggests that setting smoke-free rules and persuading smoking cessation are perhaps the most effective ways to control SHS exposure at home [8]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion