A CHILD LIVING in a household where either parent smokes is between two and two-and-a-half times more likely to smoke, according to new research.
The study, published yesterday by the HSE as part of a campaign to get people to quit, also shows that more than half of parents who smoke continue to do so at home.
Dr Fenton Howell, director of public health with the HSE, said while a smoking ban was introduced five years ago to protect people from second-hand smoke in their workplaces, parents were not recognising that they also needed to protect their children from second-hand smoke in their own homes. “Children have much less developed lungs and are more susceptible to passive smoke,” he said.
There were a number of key messages from the research, he said. One was that while many factors influenced whether young people smoked, parental behaviour was quite a “significant” one. If they quit, he said, not alone would it be the single most important thing they could do to improve their health but they would also be protecting their children.
The research was carried out among 1,000 adults by Behaviour Attitudes for the HSE. It found that of the 48 per cent of current or past smokers in Ireland, 78 per cent grew up in a house where a parent smoked.
Depressingly, though, 28 per cent said they were not likely to give up smoking even though their habit could encourage or influence their children to smoke.
Tobacco causes nearly 7,000 deaths a year in Ireland and a 20-a-day habit costs about €3,000 a year.
A new website was also launched yesterday: www.giveupsmoking.ie which provides information about quitting.