Parental Smoking
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Headline

The percentage of parents of children under age 18 who report being current smokers declined overall between 2000 and 2004, from 25 percent to 21 percent. (See Table 1)

Importance

It is estimated that 43 percent of children ages two months to 11 years live in a home with at least one smoker.¹ Children who live with a smoker are likely to inhale secondhand smoke (also known as environmental tobacco smoke), which increases their risk of developing health problems like pneumonia, bronchitis, and other lung diseases, as well as increased asthma attacks and ear infections.² The effects of secondhand smoke are particularly harmful for young children and children with asthma.³ Secondhand smoke is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections among children under 18 months of age each year.⁴

Mothers who smoke while pregnant are more likely than others to experience serious complications during their pregnancy.⁵ They are also more likely to give birth to infants who are of low birth weight (and are therefore more susceptible to serious health problems and mortality) and who are at an increased risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).⁶ Children born to mothers who smoked while pregnant, and possibly children whose grandmothers smoked while pregnant, have a higher risk of developing childhood asthma.^7,8,9

In addition to the increased health risks associated with prenatal smoking and secondhand smoke inhalation, children and adolescents who live in families with smokers are more likely to develop the habit themselves, further increasing their chances of developing serious health problems.¹⁰

Trends

The percentage of parents who report being current smokers declined overall between 2000 and 2004, from 25 percent to 21 percent. (See Table 1)

Differences by Age

Smoking among parents decreases with age. In 2004, parents ages 18 to 24 were twice as likely as parents ages 45 and older to report being current smokers (32 percent versus 16 percent, respectively). (See Table 1) Parents ages 25 to 34 and ages 35 to 44 fell in the middle (23 percent and 21 percent, respectively) and were also more likely than older parents to smoke.

Differences by Race

Non-Hispanic white parents are more likely than non-Hispanic black and Hispanic parents to report being current smokers. In 2004, 24 percent of non-Hispanic white parents reported currently smoking, compared with 18 percent of non-Hispanic black parents, and 13 percent of Hispanic parents. (See Figure 2)

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Differences by Educational Attainment

Parents with higher levels of education are significantly less likely than parents with less education to be current smokers. In 2004, 29 percent of parents with a high school diploma only reported smoking, compared with 22 percent of parents with some college, and 7 percent of parents with at least a bachelor's degree. (See Figure 1)

Differences by Public Assistance Receipt

Smoking is more common among parents living in households that received welfare/TANF or were authorized to receive Food Stamps than it is among parents living in other households. In 2004, 42 percent of parents living in families in which at least one person received income from welfare/TANF in the past year reported being a current smoker, compared with 20 percent of parents in families not receiving welfare/TANF. Similarly, parents living in households in which someone was authorized to receive Food Stamps were about twice as likely as other parents to report that they were current smokers in 2004 (40 versus 19 percent). (See Figure 3)

Related Indicators

Mothers Who Smoke While Pregnant, Heavy Drinking Among Parents

State and Local Estimates

The state-level estimates of youth and adult tobacco use from 1984 to 2004 can be obtained through the State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. STATE is an online database containing information about tobacco use and prevention, located at: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/statesystem/

State-level estimates of the degree to which children are exposed to secondhand smoke are available from State-Specific Prevalence of Cigarette Smoking Among Adults and Children's and Adolescents' Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke-United States, 1996. Available online at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00049780.htm

International Estimates

The National Tobacco Information Online System (NATIONS) provides national-level data from 197 countries and territories on tobacco-related behaviors, laws and regulations, economics, industry organization, and interventions.

NATIONS data are available on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website at: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/nations/

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National Goals

Through its Healthy People 2010 initiative, the federal government has set multiple national goals concerning tobacco use. In addition to calling for decreased smoking among people of all ages, these goals include reducing the proportion of young children (under age 6) who are regularly exposed to tobacco smoke at home (from 27 percent in 1994 to 10 percent in 2010), and decreasing exposure to secondhand smoke among all nonsmokers from 65 to 45 percent.

More information is available at: http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/document/html/objectives/27-09.htm and http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/document/html/objectives/27-10.htm

What Works: Programs and Interventions that May Influence this Indicator

None available at this time.

Research References

¹"Secondhand Smoke and Children," a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2003). Available online at http://www.cdc.gov/communication/tips/shsmoke.htm

²Ibid.

³"Fact Sheet: Secondhand Smoke," a publication of the American Lung Association (September 2000). Available online at http://www.lungusa.org/tobacco/secondhand_factsheet99.html

⁴Ibid.

⁵"Tobacco Use and Reproductive Outcomes Fact Sheet," based on US Department of Health and Human Services. Women and Smoking. A Report of the Surgeon General, 2001. Rockville (MD): US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General, 2001. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/sgr/sgr_forwomen/index.htm

⁶Ibid.

⁷Jakakkola, Jouni J. K. and Gissler, Mika. (2004). "Maternal Smoking in Pregnancy, Fetal Development, and Childhood Asthma." American Journal of Public Health, 94(1):136-140.

⁸Lee, William and Galant, Stanley. (2002). "Effects of Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Environmental Tobacco Smoke on Asthma and Wheezing in Children." Pediatrics,110(2):445-446.

⁹LI, Y.F., Langholz, B., Salam, M.T., and Gilliland, F.T. (2005). "Maternal and grandmaternal smoking patterns are associated with early childhood asthma." Chest, 127(4):1232-41.

¹⁰U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Reducing Tobacco Use: A Report of the Surgeon General-Executive Summary. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2000. Page 62. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/sgr/sgr_2000/index.htm

Definition

"Current smokers" are defined as those who have ever smoked 100 cigarettes and currently smoke everyday or some days.

Data Source

Original analysis by Child Trends of National Health Interview Survey data, 1998-2004

Raw Data Source

National Health Interview Survey, 1998-2004
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm

Approximate Date of Next Update

Winter 2007

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