What to tell parents
In a separate interview, Kelly Curran, MD, MA, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, commented on the explosive growth of e-cigarette use in the last 7 years.
What makes e-cigs so difficult to detect is that they “can resemble common objects such as flash drives or pens, and as a result, can often be hidden or overlooked by parents,” noted Dr. Curran.
The most important message for parents from this study is that they have the potential to have a large impact in the prevention of tobacco initiation, she said. “This effort requires parents to ‘walk the walk’ instead of just ‘talking the talk.”
As the study revealed, simply talking to teens about not using tobacco products doesn’t decrease use, but “creating strict household rules around no tobacco use for all visitors and inhabitants has a significant impact in decreasing youth tobacco initiation – by nearly 25%,” she added. “When counseling patients and families about tobacco prevention, clinicians should encourage them to create a tobacco-free home.”
The study was funded by a National Institutes of Health grant and the Delta Dental Community Care Foundation. The authors have no relevant financial disclosures. Dr. Curran, who is a member of the Pediatric News editorial advisory board, said she had no relevant financial disclosures.
SOURCE: Wu T-S and Chaffee BW. Pediatrics 2020 October. doi: 10.1542/peds.2019-4034.