Chest
Volume 84, Issue 6, December 1983, Pages 662-668
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Relationship of Parental Smoking and Gas Cooking to Respiratory Disease in Children

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In a survey of 1,355 children six to 12 years of age, the risk of hospitalization for respiratory illness among children before age two years was increased when gas was used for cooking at home (p <0.001) or at least one of the parents smoked (p <0.02). The occurrence of cough with colds in children also was significantly increased when one or both parents smoked (p <0.001). Small but significant increases (p <.05) in the mean values of forced expiratory volume at one second, the flow rate at 75 percent of the forced vital capacity, and the forced expiratory flow rate from 25 percent to 75 percent of the vital capacity (FEF25-75) were seen after administering inhaled isoproterenol to children whose parents smoked (n = 94) but not among children whose parents did not smoke (n = 89); this was not seen in association with gas cooking. Thus, exposure of children during the first two years of life to gas cooking or cigarette smoking appears to be associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for respiratory illness, and cigarette smoking appears to be associated with a more consistent response to inhaled bronchodilator among six- to 12-year-old children with no other history of chronic respiratory illness.

Section snippets

Subjects

Children, ages 6 to 12, who attended primary school in the Iowa City School District were contacted after permission was obtained from school administrators. The school district serves a university community. The children were therefore generally from middle and upper social classes. Participating schools included approximately 87 percent of the 2,062 children six to 12 years of age enrolled in the school district. Children from the participating schools were sent home with a letter explaining

RESULTS

Completed questionnaires were obtained for 1,355 children, or 65.7 percent of the children six to 12 years of age in the school district. Of the 1,355 completed questionnaires, data on parental smoking history was complete for 1,138 (84 percent) of the children. In the remaining 217 questionnaires, either maternal or paternal or both smoking histories were unrecorded or incompletely recorded. The proportion of children with incomplete or no parental smoking history who had cough with or apart

DISCUSSION

Respiratory symptoms and illnesses occur frequently, particularly in the temperate regions of the worlds in preschool and school-age children. Only recently has it been appreciated that parental smoking at home may be associated with an increased risk of occurrence of respiratory symptoms in children. A higher rate of hospitalization of the children before age two years for chest illnesses (bronchitis, pneumonia, etc) was associated with both parental smoking and gas cooking. A significant

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    From the Divisions of Ambulatory and Community Pediatrics and Pediatric Allergy and Pulmonary Disease, Department of Pediatrics, and the Department of Preventive and Environmental Medicine, The University of Iowa Medical School, Iowa City.

    This work was supported in part by Grant No. RR59 from the Clinical Research Center, by NIH Grant 1RO1 AI16151-01, by Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Grant C 521 A, and by the Johnson County (IA) Lung Association.

    Manuscript received December 8, 1982; revision accepted June 29.

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