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Frank Gilliland, William J. Gauderman, and John Peters Background: Research has shown that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is responsible for respiratory illnesses among young children; however, the ETS-associated morbidity for school-age children is less well defined. Previous research by this team has shown that asthma-related school absenteeism is a major problem in southern California accounting for a large portion of all absences. To determine the extent to which ETS exposure might be implicated in school absenteeism, the team investigated the relations between ETS exposure, asthma status, and illness-related school absences in 1,932 fourth-grade schoolchildren from 12 southern California communities. Advance: Overall, ETS exposure was associated with a 27% increased risk of respiratory-illness-related school absences. Children living in a household with two or more smokers were at a substantially higher risk (75%) of such absences. Children with asthma were at increased risk of respiratory-illness-related school absences. When exposed to one smoker, the risk was 2.35 times higher and when exposed to two or more smokers, the risk increased to 4.45. Implication: This study demonstrates that ETS exposure is associated with increased respiratory-related school absenteeism among children with much higher risks for children with asthma. Approximately 9 million children in the U.S. suffer from asthma, which causes millions of lost work hours for parents who must stay home from work to care for them. This research shows that ETS plays a major part in some of these absences and points out the need for smoking cessation programs, especially for the parents of children with asthma. Citation: Gilliland FD, Berhane K, Islam T, Wenten M, Rappaport E, Avol E, Gauderman WJ, McConnell R, Peters JM. Environmental tobacco smoke and absenteeism related to respiratory illness in schoolchildren. Am J Epidemiol. 2003 May 15;157(10):861-9. |
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