Cigarette characteristics, smoker characteristics, and the relationship to cigarette fires

Risk factors associated with unintentional house fire incidents, injuries and deaths in high-income countries: a systematic review

“…Of the 11 included studies,12–16 28–33 5 were case–control designs,12 13 29 30 33 2 were cross-sectional31 32 and 4 were classified by the review authors as statistical analyses of routinely collected data 14–16 28. Ten of the included studies were published papers12–16 28–30 32 33 and one was an unpublished thesis 31.…”

“…Seven studies were conducted in the USA,12–14 16 28 30 32 two in Australia,31 33 one in the UK15 and one in Canada 29. Risk factors for several house fire outcomes were investigated, including: FRS attended and unattended house fire incidents,31 32 FRS attended incidents only,12 15 29 cigarette initiated incidents only,30 fire related injuries and fatalities combined12 15 16 28 and fatalities only 13 14 33. Readers should refer to the online supplementary file S1 for summary characteristics of the included studies, and online appendix 1 in supplementary file S2 for an overview of biases identified by the review authors.…”

“…Several resident characteristics were investigated in this review, including: gender,12 14 29–31 33 age,12–14 29–33 race/ethnicity,12 14 29 32 disability,13 14 33 mental health,33 physical illness,33 household composition,12 13 15 31 33 socioeconomic status,12 15 30 32 33 educational attainment,12 30–32 employment status,29 31 33 marriage,12 previous fire29 and duration of occupancy 29…”

“…While children under the age of 5 years were also reported to be at increased risk of fatal fires,13 14 households with higher numbers of residents aged between 5 years and 17 years were associated with a decreased risk of fatalities 13. Evidence relating to the risk associated with working aged residents remains inconclusive 12 13 30 32. Finally, although older residents (65+ years) appear to be at increased risk of injury or death in the event of a fire13 14 33 (ORs range from 2.4 to 13.06), they appear less likely to experience a fire in the first place29 32 (the exception being cigarette initiated fires in which older residents were reported to be at greater risk30).…”

“…Properties with higher numbers of male residents were reported to be at increased risk of cigarette initiated fires30 and minor house fire incidents 29. A further three studies explored gender as a risk factor for fire related injuries and fatalities,12 14 33 with two reporting male to be at increased risk in unadjusted analyses (OR 1.80, p<0.01) 12 33.…”