Air date: October 16, 2011

Host: Jeremy Shere, PhD

Email
Share this segment
Download MP3

Did you Know? is presented by Wishard Health Services, becoming Eskenazi Health in 2014.

We all know that smoking is bad in about a million different ways. But did you know that kids whose parents smoke may miss more school than kids with non-smoking parents?

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital looked at more than 3,000 families and found that kids in smoking household missed at least one extra day of school per year. The same kids also had more ear infections and chest colds, which could explain the extra missed school days.

Now, one extra day per year away from school may not sound like a lot. But considering that more than 2.5 million kids in the U.S. have parents who smoke, that adds up to a lot of missed school days. And because the one missed day is only an average, it’s possible that some kids miss many more days due or related to inhaling second-hand smoke.

And now you know.

Like Sound Medicine on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Did you Know is presented by Wishard Health Services, becoming Eskenazi Health in 2014.

Additional Resources:

• Find out more about the survey that found children living with smokers have more absences from school.