Environmental tobacco smoke: is it a risk factor for diarrhea in 6-18 months old infants?

Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has been shown to have many untoward healh effects, however no study directly evaluated the effect of ETS on diarrheal diseases. In this case control study we aimed to define the risk factors including ETS for diarrheal diseases in 6-18 months old infants who live in the capital of Turkey. All of them have access to pipe water and toilets. Infants who were admitted to Hacettepe University Ihsan Dogramaci Children's Hospital Diarrheal Diseases Training and Treatment Unit with the complaint of acute diarrhea (less than 14 days) between April-May 2005 constituted the cases. Controls were age matched infants who were admitted to Well Baby Unit during the same period and never had a diarrheal episode. A total of 206 children were included in the study (104 were diarrheal cases and 102 control cases). The only statistically significant parameters were found to be maternal education (OR: 2.7 95% CI 1.2-5.9, p = 0.014), maternal cigarette smoking (OR: 2.9, 95% CI: 1.2-6.9, p = 0.015) and infant's weight for height being below 10 percentile (OR: 2.2, 95% CI: 1.1-4.5, p = 0.045). ETS should be evaluated as a risk factor for diarrhea in further studies.