PARENTAL SMOKING, DEPRESSION, AND CHILD-DEVELOPMENT - PERSISTENT AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Presented a review of the influences of parental smoking and depressio n on physical, behavioral, and cognitive development of children. The negative relationship between smoking and child development has been s hown to follow a dose-response relationship and to be independent of s everal important confounds. Likewise, parental characteristics, partic ularly depression, have also been shown to be related to both smoking and child development. Since cigarette smoking is also linked with dep ression, there are many unanswered questions regarding the interrelati onship of these three factors. Research should use a biobehavioral mod el to address the issues related to parental influences on child devel opment. Suggestions are made for such an approach to studying parental smoking and child development which addresses the overlap between dep ression and parental smoking and their influence on child maturation.