The Journal of asthma : official journal of the Association for the Care of Asthma
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Smoking may have serious consequences for asthmatics. Nevertheless, studies have shown that smoking behavior among asthmatics is similar to or even higher than that of nonasthmatics. Since the relationship between parental smoking and child smoking is well established, this study examined whether the association between parental and child smoking behavior is similar for asthmatic and nonasthmatic adolescents. The impact of parental smoking history was also explored. ⋯ Asthmatic adolescents need to become more aware of the health risks of smoking. Therefore, tailor-made antismoking campaigns are needed at schools to reduce misconceptions among asthmatic adolescents about the risks of smoking. In addition, a personal intervention approach aimed particularly at smoking parents of an asthmatic child, may make them aware of the consequences for their offspring and help them to stop smoking.
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To study the recent trends in asthma hospitalization and mortality rates by age, gender, and race categories in the United States. ⋯ This study confirms that both asthma hospitalization and mortality rates decreased during the study period and the black to white racial disparity in asthma hospitalization has narrowed for children younger than 10 years of age. For those subjects 10 years and older the racial disparity in hospitalizations narrowed until 2000 but started to widen since then. The widening racial gap in adults is disconcerting and needs further observation to assess its persistence.