Parents’ educational level and second-hand tobacco smoke exposure at home in a sample of Portuguese children

Second-hand tobacco smoke (SHS) exposure is a major and entirely avoidable health risk for children’s health, well-being and development. The main objective of the current study was to investigate the association between parents’ educational level and children’s SHS home exposure. A self-administered questionnaire was conducted within a sample of 949 students in 4th grade (mean age 9.56 ± 0.75, 53.4% male). The sample was randomly selected from all schools located at Lisbon District, Portugal. The current study confirmed that Portuguese children are exposed to unacceptable high levels of SHS at home, mainly by their parents’ smoke. Prevalence of smokers was higher amongst parents with low educational level. Children of parents with low educational level were more likely to suffer SHS exposure at home. These results confirmed the social inequalities associated with smoking, support the relevance of more research on this subject and stress the need for more interventions to control this problem. Some interventions should be specifically aimed at less educated parents, particularly at less educated mothers.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho (FCT R&D unit 317), Portugal; National Funds through the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) and co-financed by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI) through CIEC (Research Centre on Child Studies, of the University of Minho) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562