Blog 2

                A public health study was conducted in Japan on women whose husbands had smoked.  This study was to see if there was a true risk of lung cancer for “passive smoking” or as we call it today “second-hand smoking.”  Many things were taken into consideration before publishing the findings.  The public health officials compared average mortality among similar women who live similar lifestyles and found that the annual mortality for lung cancer was 8.7 per 100,000; these women’s husbands didn’t smoke or smoked very little.  However, the wives of husbands that did smoke had a much higher risk of developing lung cancer.  A wife of a husband who smoked more than twenty cigarettes per day had a morality rate from lung cancer of 13.14 per 100,000 deaths.  An even more disturbing finding is that Wives whose husbands work in agriculture had a mortality rate of 18.40 per 100,000.  The average mortality rate for women whose non-smoking husbands who worked in agriculture were 9.54 per 100,000; which is still higher than wives of non-agricultural workers.  As exposure elongated (woman lived longer), the more likely they would die from lung cancer (29.60/ 100,000 for women older than 60).  The P value of .00097 showed that the mortality was not due to chance, but to a certain reason.  In conclusion they showed that passive smoking resulted in nearly one half to one third of deaths compared to active smokers.

            These findings are very affective at showing the public that there is a clear correlation between dying of lung cancer or other lung maladies and living with a heavy smoker.  With the health of others now in mind smokers may now slow or stop their smoking in front of family members.  It also allows the government to have data to support non-smoking in public places laws because it proves harmful to others and not just oneself.

            The advantage of this study was the use of graphs and tables after the print.  Often times readers of a document like to look at pictures to accurately gauge the data presented.  Like I said before, this study will allow governments to implement  non-smoking laws in public places, which will lower non-smokers risk of lung cancer.   

            Schneider wrote about cause and effect in Chapter six of his book.  With this knowledge, I feel that second-hand smoking does, in some cases, cause lung cancer or other lung diseases.  This is because so much data was taken in this study.  They tested women from all walks of life to find their different risks of dying from a lung disease or cancer.  The researchers also showed that the results are not due to chance.