In the United States, more than 7,300 non-smokers die each year of lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by the smoker (CDC). Cigarette smoking is by far the most important risk factor for lung cancer; 80% of lung cancer deaths in the US are caused by smoking. Risk increases with both quantity and duration of smoking. Cigar and pipe smoking also increase risk. Other risk factors include occupational or environmental exposure to secondhand smoke (particularly among …show more content…
Cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke cost $92 billion in productivity losses annually, according to the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Smokers, on average, miss 6.16 days of work per year due to sickness (including smoking related acute and chronic conditions), compared to nonsmokers, who miss 3.86 days of work per year. In a study of health care utilization in 20, 831 employees of a single, large employer, employees who smoked had more hospital admissions per 1,000 (124 vs. 76), had longer average length of stay (6.47 vs. 5.03 days), and made six more visits to health care facilities per year than nonsmoking employees. Employees who smoked had approximately two times more lost production time per week than workers who never smoked, a cost equivalent of roughly $27 billion in productivity losses for