Research ArticleHealthcare Costs of Secondhand Smoke Exposure at Home for U.S. Children
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure, also known as passive smoking, is made up of side stream smoke from the burning tip of the cigarette and mainstream smoke drawn through the cigarette and exhaled by the smoker.1 SHS exposure has several adverse health effects on children, including ear infections, asthma, respiratory symptoms, respiratory infections (bronchitis and pneumonia), sudden infant death syndrome, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.2, 3, 4
Several studies have shown that SHS
METHODS
This study was conducted from 2016 to 2018. Two data sources were used. The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is a nationally representative household face-to-face interview survey of ≅100,000 people conducted annually since 1957. In each sampled household, one adult and one child are randomly selected to provide detailed health information. For children, a knowledgeable adult (usually a parent) in the household answers questions about the child. The NHIS Sample Child file contains
RESULTS
Of the 16,860 children studied, a total of 2,780 (16.4%) of children were exposed to SHS at home (Table 1). The prevalence of SHS exposure at home for children in 2000, 2005, and 2010 was 25.0%, 12.3%, and 9.1%, respectively. Most of the children were aged 6–14 years, slightly more than half were male, 60.1% were non-Hispanic white, more than half lived in households with middle incomes or greater, and 21.0% had parents with a college degree or more education. On average, 16.6% of studied
DISCUSSION
This study shows that the prevalence of SHS exposure at home for children decreased from 25.0% in 2000 to 9.1% in 2010. These findings are almost identical to those reported in a previous published study in 2016,9 although the current study focuses on children aged 3–14 years whereas the other study included those aged 0–17 years. This study found that children who were exposed to SHS at home were significantly more likely to have excess ER visits than children who were not exposed. This is
CONCLUSIONS
This study found that SHS exposure-attributable healthcare utilization and costs for children results in a large economic burden relative to all ER visits by children aged 3–14 years. The findings suggest that interventions to reduce SHS exposure at home for children are needed to reduce the economic burden attributable to SHS.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors appreciate the helpful comments of the members of the University of California, San Francisco Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science.
The research reported in this publication was supported by grant number 1P50CA180890 from the National Cancer Institute at NIH, and the Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIH or the Food and Drug Administration.
No
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