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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Smoke-free air laws and asthma prevalence, symptoms, and severity among nonsmoking youth.

Authors: Dove, Melanie S; Dockery, Douglas W; Connolly, Gregory N

Published In Pediatrics, (2011 Jan)

Abstract: We investigated the association between smoke-free laws and asthma prevalence, symptoms, and severity among nonsmoking youth (aged 3-15 years).We examined data from the 1999-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a cross-sectional survey designed to monitor the health and nutritional status of the US population. Survey locations were dichotomized as having or not having at least 1 smoke-free workplace, restaurant, or bar law at the county or state level that covered the entire county population. Asthma prevalence was assessed as self-reported current asthma and as ever having asthma with current symptoms. Asthmatic symptoms included persistent wheeze, chronic night cough, and wheeze-medication use. We also examined asthma severity (asthma attack or emergency-department visit for asthma) and persistent ear infection.Smoke-free laws were not associated with current asthma but were significantly associated with lower odds of asthmatic symptoms (odds ratio [OR]: 0.67 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.48-0.93]) among nonsmoking youth. The association between smoke-free laws and ever having asthma with current symptoms approached significance (OR: 0.74 [95% CI: 0.53-1.03]). Smoke-free laws were associated with lower odds of asthma attacks (OR: 0.66 [95% CI: 0.28-1.56]) and emergency-department visits for asthma (OR: 0.55 [95% CI: 0.27-1.13]), although these results were not statistically significant.Our results suggest that smoke-free laws reduce asthmatic symptoms, including persistent wheeze, chronic night cough, and wheeze-medication use in nonsmoking youth.

PubMed ID: 21149426 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Adolescent; Asthma/diagnosis*; Asthma/epidemiology*; Asthma/prevention & control; Child; Child, Preschool; Female; Humans; Male; Prevalence; Severity of Illness Index; Smoking Prevention*; Smoking/legislation & jurisprudence*; United States

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