Relationship between cotinine levels, household and personal smoking habit and season in 9-14 year old children

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship of salivary cotinine levels with individual and household smoking habits and with the season in a sample (n = 146) of Italian schoolchildren aged 9-14 yrs. Active smoking and environmental tobacco smoke were measured by means of a confidential standardized interview with each participating child and by a self-reported questionnaire administered to the parents. Saliva samples were obtained twice: during winter from all children and during spring from a randomly selected subgroup. "Active smokers" were significantly more likely to be males and to live with smoking family members. Frequency of detectable cotinine both in "nonsmokers" and "active smokers" was significantly correlated with the number of cigarettes smoked by household members. However, for any level of smoking by parents detectable cotinine was more likely to be found in "active smokers" than in "nonsmokers". In "nonsmokers", the proportion of subjects with detectable cotinine decreased significantly in spring compared to winter, a finding not observed in "active smokers". In conclusion, we have demonstrated that passive smoking produces most effect in winter, and is linked to the amount and style of the parents' smoking, mainly related to smoking in presence of children. Conversely, salivary cotinine detected in spring appears to be derived mainly from active smoking.

A community-based study of tobacco smoke exposure among inner-city children with asthma in Chicago

“…First, the cotinine level reflects exposure at a point in time. In this our study is like most other studies in the area, [13][14][15][16][17] which also use a single-point measurement of salivary cotinine. This method will still identify smokers with more than minimal ongoing exposure and be preferable to self-report given that subjects might misclassify their smoking status in studies.…”

“…14 Reports have suggested that levels ranging from 1 to 2 ng/mL might be the result of passive smoking. [15][16][17] Levels in the range of 2 to 8 ng/mL were still considered passive smoking, given the reference levels in the literature.…”

Association of Pediatric Dental Caries With Passive Smoking

“…43 This arrangement tends to minimize observed cotinine levels (because people spend more time indoors in extreme cold or hot weather than at other times, and ETS exposure is higher indoors than outdoors). 44 Another bias in our study that would tend to classify exposed children as unexposed and thus reduce the observed ORs is the cotinine level cutoff of 0.2 ng/mL used to define ETS exposure. This is a conservative definition of the upper limit of nonexposure as it represents a level that is well above the limit of detection with the technique used in NHANES III (0.05 ng/mL), and it corresponds to a medium low exposure level, slightly lower than the median cotinine level among nonusers of tobacco.…”

Home Exposures to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Allergic Symptoms among Young Children in Singapore

“…Despite that the data procured were not substantiated by clinical procedures such as skin prick testing, exercise challenge and lung function tests, previous surveys have found that the ISAAC written questionnaire was reasonably sensitive and specific for bronchial hyperresponsiveness [12, 20]. Home ETS exposure was also assessed using questionnaire responses considering exposure status based on questionnaire responses which have been found to provide reasonably valid estimates of exposure in studies elsewhere [1,21,22,23]. The effects of potential confounders other than the exposures of interest were controlled in the multiple regression analysis using Poisson regression with a log-link function [17].…”