BUILT: Toxics...Tobacco & Your Kids
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Built
The following are links to all of the items in this collection:
Documents
- BUILT: Toxics...Tobacco & Your Kids
- BUILT - Union Yes Tobacco No
- BUILT: Tobacco-Free Construction Worksites: A Labor-Management Guide
- BUILT - Construction Workers' Guide
- BUILT Instructor's Manual
- BUILT: Toxics & Tobacco on the Job - Protecting Your Health: Construction Workers' Guide
- BUILT: Quitting Tobacco - The Next Step: Employer's Toolbox for Building a Cessation Program
Summary Statement
A handout focusing on the impact of smoking on your children. Part of a collection. Click on the 'collection' button to access the other items.
2001
What do you bring home to your family?
As a union member
you bring home a
good paycheck.
You bring home health benefits.
You take care of your family.
Do you also
bring home
disease
and death?
Every day you are exposed to toxic
substances on the job. You try to use
the proper respirators and other
precautions. If your work exposes
you to asbestos, lead dust or other
hazards you probably change your
clothes before going home so that
you don’t expose your family to
those toxics.
When you confront Lead, Carbon
Monoxide, Toluene, and MEK on
the job, you know that you should
take special precautions. Tobacco
contains these very same ingredients.
In fact, tobacco smoke contains more
than 4,000 chemicals — at least 50 of
these are carcinogenic.
Tobacco is toxic too!
The Environmental Protection
Agency has classified secondhand
smoke as a “Group A” carcinogen –
the most dangerous category of
cancer-causing agent.
That’s why the State Building
Trades Council started the BUILT project. We want to protect
workers from the hazards of
secondhand smoke, and we want
to help smokers quit. It all begins
with your family.
Tobacco
hurts our
children
Ear Infections
- Up to 11.1% of all ear infections in children under the age of 3 in California are caused by secondhand smoke.1
Asthma
- Secondhand smoke causes up to 3,000 new childhood asthma cases in California each year.1
Respiratory Infections
- Among infants and toddlers under 18 months, secondhand smoke is blamed for up to 36,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia in California. 1
SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)
- Smoke from parents’ cigarettes is responsible for an estimated 120 cases of sudden infant death syndrome in California. 1
Kids become smokers
- If you smoke, your children are twice as likely to become smokers as well.2
- When young people start, the nicotine addiction kicks in within 2-3 days, so then they can’t just quit. 3
- More than 80% of smokers want to quit 4…but the best way to quit is not to start smoking in the first place.
Benefits of a smoke free home
HEALTHIER CHILDREN – The tobacco companies
have not disputed the research that
shows the negative health effects that cigarette
smoke has on children.
FEWER DOCTOR VISITS – Healthier children
mean fewer trips to the doctor and less
time off to make those visits.
LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS – Healthier
children means less money for out-of-pocket
health costs. By growing up healthier, children
will incur lower health care costs in their future.
LESS CHANCE YOUR CHILDREN WILL
BECOME SMOKERS – Children of smokers
are almost twice as likely to smoke as are
children of parents who never smoked.
You can avoid passing along a bad habit.
What can you do?
- Don’t smoke in your house.
- Don’t let others smoke in your house.
- Don’t smoke in your car.
- If you smoke – quit! There is a program that can help you.
1-800-NO-BUTTS
This free and confidential service helps you find the most effective way for you to quit.
This material was made possible by funds from the Tobacco Tax Health Protection Act of 988—Proposition 99, through the California Department of Health Services (contract #99-85070).
Sources:
1 California EPA, Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke, Final Report, September 1997.
2 Baumann KE, Foshee VA, Linzer MA, Koch GG. Effect of parental smoking classification on the association between parental and adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors 1990;15(5):413-22
3 University of Massachusetts, (2000, September) Tobacco Control
4 Gallup Poll, September 2000
This brochure is being distributed by your Health and Welfare Trust Fund. It was produced by BUILT — a project of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California that works directly with construction unions, apprenticeship programs and Health and Welfare funds. Our staff has developed educational resources about the health impacts of tobacco and toxics on construction sites and we provide resources to help construction workers and their family members quit if they choose to. For more information about BUILT call us at 916-442-8368.