A new study finds that smoking is doubling the number of young adults at high risk for severe COVID-19.
Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) examined 8,405 respondents in the National Health Interview Survey, ages 18-25, on serious risk factors for COVID-19 identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Control. Disease Prevention (CDC).
They found that 32 percent of respondents had at least one of the risk factors, but half of them were in the vulnerable group due to a single risk factor: smoking in the past 30 days, aAccording to the peer-reviewed study published Monday in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
When that risk factor was removed, the percentage of medically vulnerable youth dropped to 16 percent.
“Recent evidence indicates that smoking is associated with an increased likelihood of COVID-19 progression, including increased severity of illness, admission to the ICU, or death,” Sally Adams, a professor at the UCSF who led the study. “Smoking can have significant effects in young adults, who generally have low rates for most chronic diseases.”
The study occurs when cases in young adults are largely driving a national peak in COVID-19, which has been attributed to non-compliance with the rules of social distancing.
While people 65 and older continue to be hospitalized and die from the disease at much higher rates than young adults, hospitalization rates for youth also appear to be increasing. According to CDC data, the hospitalization rate for youth ages 18 to 29 tripled from May 2 to July 4, while the rate for those 65 and older only doubled.
The study found that the risk factor that places the second-highest number of youth at risk for severe COVID-19 is asthma, which affected 9 percent of respondents. Approximately 20 percent reported smoking in the past 30 days.
While the CDC includes smoking tobacco or cigarettes in the past 30 days as a risk factor, the researchers also included the use of electronic cigarettes because of their damaging effects on the respiratory system.
The study also found that there are fewer young women in the high-risk group, at 30 percent, compared to 33 percent of young men, largely due to lower smoking rates among women.
Despite national racial disparities in overall case and death rates, white youth were more likely than black, Hispanic, and Asian youth to be in the medically vulnerable group, an “unexpected” finding that the researchers primarily attributed at the highest rates of smoking among whites.
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