吸烟被发现与癌症、心血管疾病和肺病有因果关系。根据一项涵盖25个州的1078894人前瞻性流行病学研究，计算出了暴露于烟草烟雾与预期寿命损失之间具有统计学意义的剂量反应关系。1这些数据表明，每天吸烟1至9支（轻度吸烟）的30岁男性的平均患病率为。平均寿命减少6年，而每天吸烟超过40支（重度吸烟）的吸烟者平均寿命减少8.1年。因此，尽管轻度吸烟的暴露量低于重度吸烟的25%，但轻度吸烟的风险超过50%，这意味着- 发病率和死亡率的反应曲线可能非常陡峭。上述研究表明，暴露于环境烟草烟雾对不吸烟者健康的影响程度严重。因此，由于建筑内部的烟草烟雾浓度部分取决于通风率，因此，为控制烟草烟雾而规定的通风率显然具有深远的公共卫生意义。引文:德克萨斯州休斯顿ASHRAE学报第88卷第1部分研讨会

Cigarette smoking has been found to be causally related to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary disease. Based upon a 1,078,894 person prospective epidemiological study covering 25 states, statistically significant dose-response relationships between exposure to tobacco smoke and loss of life expectancy have been calculated.1 These data indicate that a 30-year-old male who smokes between 1 and 9 cigarettes per day (light smoking) suffers an average. 6-year loss of life expectancy, compared with an 8.1-year loss for smokers of more than 40 cigarettes per day (heavy smoking). Thus, although the exposure in light smoking is less than 25% of that in heavy smoking, the risk for light smoking is more than 50%, implying that the dose-response curve for morbidity and mortality may be very steep.The foregoing studies indicate the serious extent to which exposure to ambient tobacco smoke affects the health of the nonsmokers. Therefore, because the concentrations of tobacco smoke in building interiors are partly determined by ventilation rates, the ventilation rates prescribed for the control of tobacco smoke clearly have profound public health significance.