Questionnaire Data as Predictors of Urinary Cotinine Levels among Nonsmoking Adolescents

Abstract

The strength of association between urinary cotinine and questionnaire data on passive smoking among 542 adolescents was evaluated. There were 103 individuals with urinary cotinine higher than 30 ng/ml; they were compared with all other subjects. The single variable that best predicted the urinary cotinine level was maternal smoking. A strong effect was made by house size and, consequently, house crowding. Maternal smoking and house crowding had a synergic effect. The subject's perception of passive smoking at home also was an independent indication of a high cotinine level. The final model had a fairly good sensitivity, whereas the specificity was somewhat lower. The results suggest that maternal smoking, house crowding, and subject's perception of a smoky environment could be surrogate indices of high passive smoking exposure in this age group and could be useful for epidemiologic studies.

Determinants of children's exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS): A study in Southern Germany

“…Households with a higher socio-economic status can afford to buy or rent larger houses or flats and are more likely to be nonsmoker households. A negative correlation between children's urinary cotinine levels and house size was also reported in two other studies (Forastiere et al, 1993;Dell'Orco et al, 1995). When limiting the analysis to smoking households, the negative association between size of flat and children's CCR persists, indicating a higher degree of ETS dilution in larger flats.…”

“…Smoking at home explains almost 40% of the variability of the CCR and similar observations have been made in many earlier studies with preschool or school children (Jarvis et al, 1985(Jarvis et al, , 1987Coultas et al, 1987;Forastiere et al, 1993;Cook et al, 1994;Dell'Orco et al, 1995;Bono et al, 1996;Jordaan et al, 1999;Scherer et al, 1999). In a study carried out in Scotland, the number of smokers in the household Exposure of children to ETS Scherer et al accounted for as much as 51% of the observed variance in saliva cotinine (Jarvis et al, 1992).…”

“…A correct and practical assessment of the exposure dose is required in order to elucidate the role of ETS exposure in the development of these diseases. The smoking habit of the parents, particularly maternal smoking, has been identified as the most important source of children's exposure to ETS (Coultas et al, 1987(Coultas et al, , 1990Henderson et al, 1989;Jarvis et al, 1992;Forastiere et al, 1993;Cook et al, 1994;Dell'Orco et al, 1995;Jordaan et al, 1999). In a recent small study with children (Scherer et al, 1999), we applied several methods of assessing their exposure to ETS, including detailed questionnaires on the duration and extent of ETS exposure, personal samplers for nicotine worn over 1 week, and cotinine measurements in saliva and urine.…”

A Longitudinal Test of the Theory of Planned Behavior Predicting Smoking Onset among Asthmatic and Non-asthmatic Adolescents

“…Only adolescents who never smoked at T1 were included in this study. Assessing smoking among adolescents by self-reports showed to be valid (Barnea et al 1987;Forastiere et al 1993), and the instrument used in the present study has been used in various health studies in the Netherlands Harakeh et al 2004;Van De Ven et al 2006). …”

“…However, studies have shown that self-reports on smoking are reliable and valid when anonymity is guaranteed (Barnea et al 1987;Forastiere et al 1993), and prevalence estimates of smoking were similar when using self-reports or a biological markers (salivary cotinine) (Dolcini et al 2003). On the other hand, this has not been examined in adolescents with asthma.…”