A new study was presented over the weekend at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2018 Meeting (Toronto). It claims that children exposed to both marijuana and tobacco smoke get to the emergency department more often than those who aren’t exposed to any smoke.
The name of the study is “Correlation between secondhand marijuana and tobacco smoke exposure and children ED visits”. After researching the link between smoke and ED visits, researchers found out that only children exposed to both types of smoke had an increased chance of getting into an Emergency Room.
The study contained a survey of 1,500 caregivers of children. The caregivers completed the survey at the emergency department in a Colorado Children’s hospital. Results showed that 140 caregivers (9.2%) smoked marijuana regularly, while 285 (19%) smoked tobacco regularly.
Among all children arriving at the emergency room, 4.1% were exposed to marijuana smoke, 14.2% to tobacco smoke, and 5% were exposed to both marijuana and tobacco smoke. The rest of 76.6% were not exposed to any smoke.
Children Visit ED More Often When Exposed to Both Marijuana and Tobacco Smoke
Comparing the surveys with the rate of emergency room visits, researchers found that a single group was different. The group of children exposed to both types of smoke had an increased rate of emergency room visits, while the others were at similar rates.
Over a year, children not exposed to smoke went to the emergency room for 1.97 times. Children exposed to tobacco smoke went 2.09 times, while those exposed to marijuana smoke went 2.19. The group of children exposed to both types of smoke had 2.48 visits.
The study was conducted by two professors: Adam B. Johnson, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Health (Winston – Salem, North Carolina), and Rakesh D. Mistry, an associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Colorado / University of Colorado School of Medicine (Aurora, Colorado).
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.