Association between passive smoking and respiratory symptoms and clinically significant chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among never-smoking participants of the Health Survey for England, 1995/1996
| Respiratory symptoms* | Clinically significant COPD† | |
| Adjusted OR‡ (95% CI) | Adjusted OR‡ (95% CI) | |
| n | 5441 | 5441 |
| Age (years) | ||
| 40–49 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 50–59 | 1.37 (1.16 to 1.62) | 1.46 (0.74 to 2.87) |
| 60–69 | 2.03 (1.72 to 2.40) | 2.73 (1.46 to 5.10) |
| 70–79 | 3.06 (2.54 to 3.68) | 6.33 (3.48 to 11.54) |
| 80+ | 4.22 (3.29 to 5.40) | 11.08 (5.76 to 21.30) |
| Sex | ||
| Male | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Female | 1.32 (1.17 to 1.50) | 0.99 (0.67 to 1.44) |
| Year | ||
| 1995 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 1996 | 0.97 (0.87 to 1.09) | 0.61 (0.42 to 0.87) |
| Passive smoking exposure (h/week) | ||
| 0 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| 1–19 | 1.20 (1.06 to 1.37) | 1.52 (1.04 to 2.23) |
| 20+ | 1.68 (1.36 to 2.08) | 1.98 (1.03 to 3.79) |
↵* Respiratory symptoms: any of dyspnoea, wheeze, chronic cough or phlegm.
↵† Lower limit of normal (LLN) criteria24 25: participants with FEV1/FVC values >1.645 SD below the mean reference value plus respiratory symptoms.
↵‡ Adjusted for age, sex, passive smoking exposure and year of study.
COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.