Fumar em Área Aberta é o Suficiente para Proteção das Crianças?

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that nearly 603 thousand persons die annually worldwide because of secondhand smoke. Of these, 168,840 (28%) are children. The Global Burden of Disease 3 affirmed that approximately 47 thousand children aged less than five years old die due to secondhand smoke. Lab tests concluded that exposure to thirdhand smoke negatively affects organs and systems in development. Different from adults, children are unable to adjust their exposure to tobacco smoke and are compelled to live in a given environment. Measuring children’s exposure to tobacco smoke is challenging and difficult because it depends on information provided by the family, quite often, inaccurate or sub-reported. In Israel, a questionnaire with images and opening sequences on hypothetical situations was developed and validated to measure parents’ perception of their children exposure to tobacco smoke. This tool was translated and adapted to the Brazilian context and is available to be utilized by the health professional as a guiding strategy and conduct to reduce children’s exposure either to secondhand or thirdhand smoke.