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Smoking as a common risk factor has been known to be one of the most important health problems in the current century worldwide. Native Americans first started using tobacco in ritual ceremonies. In addition, they found some medical benefits for controlling pain when chewing tobacco (e.g. reducing toothache)1. However, it is now well-recognized that smoking is one of the main causes of preventable death especially in developing countries2. About 29% of the total world population are tobacco users3, and Smoking-related diseases kill more than five million people globally4 and 75000 people in Iran every year5. Tobacco use is also considered as the main reason for aggravating deadly non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, asthma, and etc. Moreover, there is the high potential for a contagious disease like tuberculosis to be activated and exacerbated by firstor second-hand smoking2. According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking can directly increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases, brain stroke, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, peripheral vascular disease, infertility, premature birth and low birth weight6. In addition to the direct impacts of smoking, exposure to second-hand smoke can cause significant health risks for non-smokers. Based on the 2010 CDC report, cigarette smoke contains over 7000 harmful chemicals with hundreds being toxic and about 70 of them being carcinogenic. Likewise, available evidence shows that cigarette smoke is one of the causing factors for coronary artery disease and lung cancer in adults as well as middle ear infection, respiratory disease, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), low birth weight, brain tumours, leukaemia and asthma in children7. Death caused by passive smoking is mainly due to Ischemic heart disease in adults and lower respiratory infections in children8. Smoking has been reported to be related to different oral diseases like oral and pharyngeal cancers, advanced periodontitis, disorders in oral cavity wound healing, increasing the risk of root decay and soft tissue changes e.g. nicotine induced stomatitis as well as oral premalignant lesions9,10. Health professionals are expected to play an active role in controlling tobacco and cigarette consumption at the individual and community levels11. Both direct and indirect interventions by health professionals can greatly reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)12. Dentists are in a unique position to control smoking for many reasons such as 1) they are preventive oriented, 2) can provide age-specific preventive care and education, 3) meet patients regularly in several sessions and keep good communication with them in a short and long term period to influence on their smoking habit13. Beside health professionals, special attention must be paid to health occupations students because they will be the key players of health promotion in society14. Before improving the role of our future health professionals in controlling tobacco use, we need to have information about their smoking behaviour. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the smoking behaviour and exposure to ETS among the students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBUMS). Smoking and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke among health occupations students in Iran Mohammad Hossein Khoshnevisan1,2, Marzie Deghatipour2, Arezoo EbnAhmady3, Hooman Keshavarz4