W.Va. child most apt to live with smoker

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ROCKVILLE, Md., July 21 (UPI) -- Seven-point-six percent of U.S. children live with someone who smokes tobacco at home but the number varies greatly among states, researchers found.

Gopal K. Singh and Michael D. Kogan of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Mohammad Siahpush of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, used data from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health and state-level data on home smoking from the 2006–2007 Current Population Survey -- Tobacco Use Supplement.

The rates of children living with a smoker ranged from 1.1 percent for Utah and 1.9 percent for California to a high of 17.9 percent for West Virginia and 17.6 percent in Kentucky.

After adjusting for sociodemographic factors, the researchers said children in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania had 12 times higher odds -- and those in Wisconsin, Missouri, Delaware and the District of Columbia had 10 times higher odds -- of being exposed to environmental tobacco smoke than children in Utah.