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Smoke-free air prevents asthma flare-ups

For children with asthma, reducing exposure to environmental tobacco smoke decreases their chances of an asthma flare-up

Smoke-free air prevents asthma flare-ups

For children with asthma, reducing exposure to environmental tobacco smoke decreases their chances of an asthma flare-up, hospital admission or emergency room visits.

Studies in the past have linked environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) with poor asthma outcomes in children. To investigate if natural changes in ETS exposure over time in asthmatic children could affect health-care utilisation, researchers from America identified 290 asthmatic children enrolled in a clinical trial of supervised asthma therapy. The average age of the children was 11 years and 80 per cent of them had moderate persistent asthma.

At the start of the study, around 28 per cent of the caregivers reported that the child was exposed to second-hand smoke in the home and 19 per cent reported exposure to smoke outside the home only. At a follow-up interview, 74 per cent of caregivers reported no change in the child's exposure to second-hand smoke, 17 per cent reported less exposure, and 9 per cent reported increased exposure.

It was found that children who had any decrease in exposure to second-hand smoke over the course of one year had fewer episodes of poor asthma control, made fewer respiratory-related trips to the emergency room and were less apt to be hospitalised than children who had the same or increased exposure to second-hand smoke.

Given that the majority of second-hand smoke exposure in the home is due to parents smoking, the researchers recommended smoking cessation interventions to parents and other household members as the most effective ETS reduction strategy.
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