By Joe Milicia
The Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Environmental Protection Agency officials figure that if they can persuade mom to quit smoking around the kids, then dad will, too.

EPA Administrator Christie Whitman introduced a radio and television ad campaign Friday that encourages mothers to provide smoke-free homes for their children. The goal is to reduce childhood ailments such as asthma, bronchitis and ear infections, which can result from secondhand smoke.

The public service announcements reach out to mothers because they head the majority of single-parent homes, Whitman said.

She also said that in two-parent homes, what mom says carries a lot of weight.

"If the mother says, 'It's not going to happen in here,' the father usually goes along with it," she said.

Cleveland was chosen to kick off the campaign because it has a high number of adult smokers and is actively trying to reduce smoking rates, Whitman said.

Asking parents to stop smoking around their children is less difficult than asking them to quit altogether, and will have an immediate effect, she said.

However, there was some concern that parents would reject the campaign because homes are one of the few places left where people are permitted to smoke, said Jack Gillis, director of public affairs for the Consumer Federation of America, which is assisting with the campaign.

That's why the ads are filled with cute kids saying that their moms are heroes for not smoking around them.

"Kids are very powerful influences and in this case are the unwitting victims," Gillis said.

Ad campaigns can be effective in getting adults to change their smoking habits, said Dr. Terry Pechacek, associate director for science in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's office of smoking and health.

He said California ran a successful ad campaign that dramatically increased the state's number of smoke-free households.

"Certainly we feel like this is a serious problem," he said of secondhand smoke.

"We continue to see the level of exposure to children is higher than adults."