Early exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke and the development of allergic diseases in 4 year old children in Malmö, Sweden

BMC Pediatrics

Research Article

Elisabeth Mangrio¹  Martin Lindström²  Kristina Hansen²  Maria Rosvall² 

[1] Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden;Scania University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden;Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden;

关键词: Atopic Eczema;    Cotinine;    Maternal Smoking;    Allergic Sensitization;    Allergic Symptom;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2431-10-61

 received in 2010-02-16, accepted in 2010-08-23,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEarlier studies have shown an association between secondhand tobacco smoke and allergy development in children. Furthermore, there is an increased risk of developing an allergy if the parents have an allergy. However, there are only few studies investigating the potential synergistic effect of secondhand tobacco smoke and allergic heredity on the development of an allergy.MethodsThe study was population-based cross-sectional with retrospective information on presence of secondhand tobacco smoke during early life. The study population consisted of children who visited the Child Health Care (CHC) centres in Malmö for their 4-year health checkup during 2006-2008 and whose parents answered a self-administered questionnaire (n = 4,278 children). The questionnaire was distributed to parents of children registered with the CHC and invited for the 4-year checkup during the study period.ResultsThere was a two to four times increased odds of the child having an allergy or having sought medical care due to allergic symptoms if at least one parent had an allergy, while there were rather small increased odds related to presence of secondhand smoke during the child's first month in life or at the age of 8 months. However, children with heredity for allergies and with presence of secondhand tobacco smoke during their first year in life had highly increased odds of developing an allergy and having sought medical care due to allergic symptoms at 4 years of age. Thus, there was a synergistic effect enhancing the independent effects of heredity and exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke on allergy development.ConclusionsChildren with a family history of allergies and early exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke is a risk group that prevention and intervention should pay extra attention to. The tobacco smoke effect on children is an essential and urgent question considering it not being self chosen, possibly giving life lasting negative health effects and being possible to reduce.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Hansen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.