Kavita Batra (Medicine) co-authored "Global, regional, and national prevalence of second-hand smoke and attributable disease burden in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2023: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023," published in The Lancet Public Health. The study is the first Global Burden of Disease publication devoted entirely to second-hand smoke. It estimates that 2.71 billion people worldwide were exposed in 2023, including 767 million children under 15, and that this exposure was linked to 1.66 million deaths. Exposure rates have fallen by about a fifth since 1990, but population growth has kept the number of people exposed roughly the same, and in sub-Saharan Africa that number has nearly doubled.

Batra is a senior collaborator in the Global Burden of Disease network, has published several articles on global health issues, and provided critical feedback on the study's methods and results.