2.4.2. Independent Measures
Study 1 vs. Study 2: The independent variable for the first analyses was whether the children were from smoking or non-smoking families. Study 1: The independent variable for the second assessment was the location of smoking. We asked parents to show us where they usually smoked, with the question “Where does smoking usually take place?” and recorded and categorized the responses into four categories: (1) garden/yard/other place outside of the home; (2) balcony (without differentiating between degree of enclosure of the porch or whether the balcony had a roof); (3) designated smoking areas inside the home (DSA) (e.g., enclosed service/laundry balcony/clearly indoor balcony, designated room, or smoking at the window); or (4) anywhere inside the house. Because only 3 families reported smoking in the entire house, we combined categories 3 and 4 into a single category, “in the home,” for the purpose of statistical analysis. We asked about the daily number of cigarettes smoked by the parents and created a variable that indicated the combined number of cigarettes smoked daily. We asked about which parent smokes (mother only, father only, both), and categorized the variable into two categories: (1) Both parents smoke; or (2) only one parent smokes.Sociodemographic questions: sociodemographic data were used in adjusted models. Data collected were: child age in months; parental nationality (both parents Israel-born/other); maternal education (categorized into non-academic and academic; at least some university-level education); paternal education (categorized into non-academic and academic); monthly household income (categorized into above average, average, and below average); neighborhood SES (scale of 1–20, with 20 the highest) [