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1991.06.18 :  Study -- Secondary Smoke

Contact: Liz Greeley (301) 436-7551 Sandra Smith (301) 436-7135
June 18, 1991

     The risk of fair or poor health is almost twice as great for
children who live in households with current smokers as it is for
children who were never exposed to cigarette smoke, according to a
study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control's National
Center for Health Statistics.
     In releasing the study today, HHS Secretary Louis W. 
Sullivan, M.D., said, "I can't think of a more compelling reason
for parents to quit smoking than ensuring their children's chance
for a healthy life."
     The survey found that in households with current smokers, 4.1
percent of children--well over a quarter of a million children 5
years old or younger--were in fair or poor health compared to 2.4
percent of children in households where no one smoked and 3.5
percent in families where smokers quit.  The state of the
children's health was based on reports by the household respondent,
usually a parent.   
        About half of all children in the United States 5 years old
or younger have been exposed to cigarette smoke, and more than a
quarter of all young children were exposed to passive smoke both
before and after birth.
     William L. Roper, M.D., director of the Centers for Disease
Control, said, "This study's findings indicate that children
currently exposed to environmental smoke appear to be at somewhat 
greater health risk than those formerly exposed.  Further, children
are healthiest in families where no one has ever smoked." 
     Children in families with lower income and education were more
likely to have been exposed to cigarette smoking and were more
likely to have experienced fair or poor health.
     About two-thirds of young children in families with incomes of
less than $10,000 were ever exposed to smoke compared to 36 percent
of children whose family income was $40,000 or more, almost twice
the risk.

     The overall rate of children ever exposed to cigarette smoke
declined as the level of the mother's education increased, from 67
percent of children whose mothers did not complete high school to
35 percent of mothers with one or more years of college.

     "Evidence of the danger of environmental smoke to children's
health is clear,"  HHS Assistant Secretary for Health James O.
Mason, M.D., said.  Dr. Mason, who heads the U.S. Public Health
Service, said, "It is now our job to ensure this information
reaches every parent."
     
     "Children's Exposure to Environmental Cigarette Smoke Before
and After Birth:  United States, 1988," was prepared from
information gathered in the 1988 National Health Interview Survey
on Child Health conducted by the National Center for Health
Statistics in  collaboration with the National Institutes of
Health's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

     The findings showed black children (60 percent) were more
likely to have ever been exposed to environmental smoke than were
white children (49 percent) with most of the difference occurring
in the postnatal period.

     Children of Hispanic origin, in contrast, were less likely
ever to have been exposed to smoke than were non-Hispanic children
(44 percent and 51 percent, respectively), with Mexican-American
children least likely to have been exposed (40 percent).

     Copies of the report are available from the National Center
for Health Statistics, 6525 Belcrest Road, Room 1064, Hyattsville,
Md.  20782.  The center and the Centers for Disease Control are
part of the Public Health Service family of health agencies in HHS.


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