Biological Responses to Tobacco Smoke Exposure in Ill Children: Inflammatory Processes and Oral Metabolomic Profiles

This CHEAR project will leverage an ongoing, two-group randomized controlled trial (R01HD083354) that compares the efficacy of a tobacco cessation intervention to an active control condition on smoking caregivers who bring their children to the pediatric emergency department. Participants are 0-17 years of age, nonsmokers, and have a potentially tobacco smoke related illness at baseline. All participants have varying levels of smoke exposure and live in the tristate area of southern Ohio, Indiana, or Kentucky. The sample is approximately 56% African American, 33% White, and 11% other races; sex is equally distributed. Recruitment began in April 2016. The CHEAR project will use sensitive LCMS techniques to analyze cotinine, a measure of tobacco smoke exposure, in child saliva samples collected from ill children at baseline and six-weeks after baseline. Investigators will explore the associations between different levels of tobacco smoke exposure and a broad range of biological outcomes associated with immune system dysregulation based on biomarkers of inflammatory responses and findings from targeted and untargeted metabolomics.