Effects of Family Smoking on Acute Respiratory Disease in Children

ABSTRACT

A household interview survey of 3,651 children aged 0-14 years was performed February-June 1985 to assess the relationship between family smoking and acute respiratory disease (cough) in children. Family smoking (risk variable) was measured by using six variables which were number of smokers in the family, parental smoking, number of smokers in the same room, number of cigarettes consumed daily by all family members, number of cigarettes consumed daily by parents and number of cigarettes consumed daily by the same room members. Then six logistic models were estimated with each of the six risk variables and selected confounding variables. The range of estimated relative odds of six risk variables was between 126 and 3.00. However, three risk variables showed a significant negative interaction with coughers in the family. So, if there were coughers in the family, the relative odds of these three risk variables were reduced to around 1. This study does not offer the conclusion that family smoking directly contributes to the develpment of acute respiratory disease in children but does suggest the possibility of direct or indirect causal relationship between them.