A new study has found that children exposed to vaping indoors absorb less than one seventh the amount of nicotine as children who are exposed to indoor smoking.
The study is published in JAMA Network Open. Led by UCL researchers the study looked at blood tests and survey data for 1,777 children aged three to 11 in the United States.
The researchers said that secondhand exposure to harmful substances in e-cigarettes would likely be much lower still, as e-cigarettes deliver similar levels of nicotine to tobacco but contain only a fraction of the toxicants and carcinogens.
The researchers looked at nicotine absorption in children, but they said the findings were likely to be similar for adults. Lead author Dr. Harry Tattan-Birch, of the UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care, said, “Our study shows, using data from the real world rather than an artificial lab setting, that nicotine absorption is much lower from second-hand vapour than from second-hand smoking. “Nicotine itself is of limited risk, but it shows what the highest possible exposure might be from second-hand vaping.
Exposure to harmful non-nicotine substances present in vapor will likely be substantially lower still.” Senior author Professor Lion Shahab, of the UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care, said, “This paper suggests that concerns about second-hand vaping may be somewhat overstated, with second-hand exposure to toxic substances likely to be very low. “The findings confirm the risks of smoking indoors around children, which should be avoided at all costs.
However, as second-hand vaping still exposes children to more harmful substances than no vaping or smoking exposure at all, it is best to avoid indoor vaping around children, too.”
The study used data from a nationally representative sample of children in the US, collected between 2017 and 2020 as part of the annual US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).