Does any patient in your practice smoke using a hookah or water pipe to inhale flavored tobacco or to inhale other drugs such as cannabis or an opiate? Have you ever even asked about hookah smoking? Agaku et al. (10.1542/peds.2018-0341) explains that this is something worth talking to teens about after you read their study being released this week in our journal. The authors analyzed data from the 2016 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which included more than 20,600 teenagers in 6th to 12th grade. Students reported their frequency of hookah smoking, where they smoked, and what their perception was regarding others smoking hookah pipes. The results indicate that while students overestimated how many of their classmates were using a hookah, 10.5% of those surveyed had used a hookah at some point in their young lives, and 26.3% of those who used a hookah remained as “current occasional” and 7.9% as current frequent smokers. Even if students overestimated the prevalence, the reported numbers are still concerning, especially when it becomes clear from the results that the odds of using these devices increases if others in the home are using them or if the teens used other smoking products especially mentholated cigarettes or other flavored non-cigarette tobacco products. It is also interesting that hookah smoking was most apt to occur at a friend’s house (47.7%), in one’s own house (31.8%), or in another family member’s house (20.8%).
If you aren’t familiar with what you can do about hookah prevention, the authors provide some suggestions as well in their discussion of the findings. The fact that so much of this smoking occurs in the home environment requires perhaps some different educational strategies that alter the social norm in these homes. Home should be where the heart is—but not the hookah. Read this study and learn more.
