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133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA |
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Bill Chiu, MD1, Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, MD, MPH2, Karen Sheehan, MD, MPH3, and Marie Crandall, MD1. (1) Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 251 E. Huron Street, 3-150, Chicago, IL 60611, 312-695-4835, macranda@nmh.org, (2) Children's Memorial Hospital, Center for Obesity Management and Prevention, 2300 Children's Plaza, Box 157, Chicago, IL 60614-3394, (3) Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Children's Memorial Hospital, 2300 Children's Plaza, Chicago, IL 60614
Socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in the United States have disproportionately high number of children diagnosed with asthma. We investigated the various risk factors that might contribute to the disease in a cohort of children born to high-risk families.
Methods
The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is a longitudinal cohort of approximately 5000 children from mostly unwed parents across the United States. Data from interviews with mothers conducted shortly after birth and follow-up surveys at one year were used for this analysis. Infant asthma was identified when the child was treated by health care professionals for asthma or when the child had more than one episode of asthma attack. Multivariate regression analysis was used to identify independent risk factors for asthma in this population.
Results
13.5% of the respondents (n=506 of 3747) had an infant with asthma. Significant risk factors associated with infant asthma included maternal cigarette smoking, low child weight, child's male gender, and African-American race. Breastfeeding had a protective effect. (Table 1) Table 1
Risk Factor |
Odds Ratio |
95% CI |
p-value |
Breastfeeding |
0.79 |
0.64-0.97 |
0.024 |
Maternal Cigarette Smoking |
1.40 |
1.12-1.74 |
0.003 |
Child's Weight |
1.22 |
1.02-1.46 |
0.032 |
Male Gender |
0.56 |
0.46-0.69 |
0.000 |
African-American Race |
2.52 |
1.94-3.28 |
0.000 |
Conclusion
Environmental factors interact with a child's characteristics in contributing to infantile asthma. Policies that promote breastfeeding, discourage maternal cigarette smoking, and identify high-risk children could reduce asthma incidence.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Asthma, Child Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.
The 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition (December 10-14, 2005) of APHA