Questionnaire-Based Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Hair Nicotine Levels in 6-month-old Infants: A Validation Study in Indonesia

Objectives. Using hair nicotine as the gold standard, this study aimed to establish cutoff points and validate the questionnaire-based environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure and ETS statuses of Indonesian infants. Methods. A cross-sectional study design was conducted among families who were participants of the Peer Health Cohort Study in Jakarta, Indonesia. Households with 6-month-old infants joined this study. The presence and amount of ETS exposure were assessed by both questionnaire and hair sampling for nicotine determination. Head hair samples were collected from 102 infants and measured by optimized gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Infants were grouped as ETS-exposed if they lived with at least 1 smoker at home. We used the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to assess the sensitivity and specificity of cutoff values of hair nicotine. Results. There were 78 (76.5%) infants exposed to ETS based on the questionnaire. The nicotine concentrations in hair were significantly higher in infants with ETS exposure than in those without ETS exposure (P <.001). The area under the curve for nicotine was 0.774. A hair nicotine cutoff value of 2.37 ng/mg, with a sensitivity of 67.95% and specificity of 83.33%, was identified as the optimal cutoff value for separating exposed from non-exposed to ETS in infants. Conclusion. The hair nicotine value of infants aged 6 months is useful in confirming the questionnaire on smoking in the household and exposure to ETS. Moreover, it also could be used to distinguish ETS-exposed from non-ETS-exposed infants.