Overall, in a nationwide sample of children with asthma, about 13 percent of parents of asthmatic children still smoke -- even though second-hand smoke is known to trigger asthma attacks and symptoms in kids.
Those findings, made by University of Michigan researchers and scheduled to be presented here on May 4 at the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting, reinforce the importance of educating parents about how their own smoking can affect their children with asthma. The study is based on data from in-depth phone interviews with 896 parents of asthmatic children ages 2 to 12 years in 10 states.
Those interviews were done as part of the Physician Asthma Care Education (PACE) project, which is designed to improve asthma education for physicians, and consequently the health of their young patients who have asthma. The chronic condition affects one in every seven children.
The new analysis was conducted by Kathryn Slish, a researcher in the U-M Department of Pediatrics, with assistant professor of pediatrics Michael Cabana, M.D., M.P.H., M.A. The PACE project is led by U-M School of Public Health Dean Noreen Clark, Ph.D., and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
"We set out to look at children who have seasonal asthma symptoms, but found that a substantial percentage have symptoms year-round," says Slish. "We looked more closely and found a strong relationship between parents' smoking status and the likelihood that their child would have problems all year long.
"It's not rocket science, since it's well known that second-hand smoke can trigger asthma in children," Slish continues. "But it's astounding that so many parents smoke around their asthmatic kids, and don't stop even though their children are having trouble breathing all year."
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Contact: Kara Gavin
kegavin@umich.edu
734-764-2220
University of Michigan Health System
4-May-2004