Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Volume 164, Number 6, September 2001, 973-976

Exposure-Response Relationship Between Paternal Smoking and Children's Pulmonary Function

SCOTT A. VENNERS, XIAOBIN WANG, CHANGZHONG CHEN, BINYAN WANG, JIATONG NI, YONGTANG JIN, JIANHUA YANG, ZHIAN FANG, SCOTT T. WEISS, and XIPING XU

Program for Population Genetics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; Center for Bioenvironmental Research, Tulane and Xavier Universities, New Orleans, Louisiana; U.S./China Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana; Department of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts; Anhui-Meizhong Institute of Biomedicine and Environmental Health, Anqing, China; Anhui Medical University, Institute of Biomedicine, Anhui, China; and Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate paternal smoking and children's pulmonary function in rural communities of Anqing, China. Our analysis included 1,718 children 8 to 15 yr of age whose mothers were never-smokers. Multiple linear regression models were used to estimate the effect of paternal smoking on children's pulmonary function, with adjustment for children's age, sex, weight, height, square of height, asthma, and father's education. When compared with children of never-smoking fathers, children of smoking fathers had small, but detectable deficits in FEV₁ (36 ml, SE = 20) and FVC (37 ml, SE = 22). When children of smoking fathers were subdivided into two subgroups, father smoked < 30 cigarettes/day and  30 cigarettes/day, we found that children whose fathers smoked  30 cigarettes/day had the largest deficits in both FEV₁ (79 ml, SE = 30) and FVC (71 ml, SE = 34). This monotonic exposure-response relationship remained in all strata when we further stratified our analysis by children's sex and asthma status. Our data also suggested that the relationship was greatest among nonasthmatic girls, although neither sex nor asthma interaction terms were statistically significant. We conclude that there is a monotonic exposure-response relationship between paternal smoking and decline of pulmonary function in children in this rural Chinese population.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. T. Sigurdarson and J. N. Kline School Proximity to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and Prevalence of Asthma in Students Chest, June 1, 2006; 129(6): 1486 - 1491. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. S.-m. Ip, F. W.-s. Ko, A. C.-w. Lau, W.-c. Yu, K.-s. Tang, K. Choo, M. M.-w. Chan-Yeung, and on Behalf of the Hong Kong Thoracic Society and Am Updated spirometric reference values for adult chinese in Hong Kong and implications on clinical utilization. Chest, February 1, 2006; 129(2): 384 - 392. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. N. Upton, G. D. Smith, A. McConnachie, C. L. Hart, and G. C. M. Watt Maternal and Personal Cigarette Smoking Synergize to Increase Airflow Limitation in Adults Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., February 15, 2004; 169(4): 479 - 487. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Zhang and K. R Smith Indoor air pollution: a global health concern Br. Med. Bull., December 1, 2003; 68(1): 209 - 225. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. J. TOBIN Pediatrics, Surfactant, and Cystic Fibrosis in AJRCCM 2001 Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., March 1, 2002; 165(5): 619 - 630. [Full Text] [PDF]