Also, a high level of platelet activity leads to increas!.
ed levels of atheroscleritic plaque (Glanz & Parmley, 1995:1048).
During an epidemiological study, Law, Morris and Wald (1997), set out to discover why it seemed that the risk of CVD in passive smokers was only fractionally smaller than the risk in smokers- even though smokers inhale a great deal more smoke. The comparatively greater risk of CVD in non-smokers exposed to smoke is a result of the physiological adjustment of the smoker that involves an adaptation of the body to try to compensate for the large amounts of smoke being inhaled. A non-smoker does not have the benefit of this adaptation and is therefore, much more sensitive to even small amounts of smoke (Glanz & Parmley, 1995:1049). The negative effects that passive smoking has on health have been widely acknowledged and discussed. These negative health effects include respiratory problems, increased risk of many forms of cancer, as well as an increased risk of CVD (Glanz & Parmley, 1995). .
In some countries around the world, there are enormous gaps between the percentages of men and women that smoke. Mostly, social factors in these countries mean that there are many more men than there are women that smoke. This means that passive smoking is a much greater risk for women than for men. According to He et al (1994), "Urgent public health measures are required to reduce smoking so as not only to protect women from environmental tobacco smoke, but also to protect men from the hazards of active smoking.".
Therefore, it could be said that the public health implications of passive smoking are enormous. It has been suggested that passive smoking is largely responsible for between 30000 and 60000 deaths annually in the United States (Glanz & Parmley, 1995:1053). Such an expensive problem, both in terms of human life and finances, most certainly warrants a huge public health effort; especially because the problems caused by passive smoking are so easily prevented (Glanz & Parmley, 1995:1053).