Association between asthma and obesity in the pediatric population

The main objective of this study was to determine the association between childhood asthma and obesity in the Puerto Rican population. In the U.S the prevalence of asthma in this age group is 8.7 percent(2004). In Puerto Rico asthma is the most common health condition among the 17 year or younger population with a prevalence of 21 percent(2003), representing more than twice the prevalence in U.S. Data for this study was obtained from the Puerto Rico Health Interview Survey, conducted by the UPR Graduate School of Public Health. A probability sample of households representative of each of the 78 municipalities was selected using a multistage stratified cluster sample design. The interviewed sample in 2003 consisted of 16,617 households, which yielded information about 47,962 persons. The estimated prevalence of asthma was 21.5 percent (95% CI 19.1%; 24.1%) for ages 0-4 years, 24.2% (95%CI 22.3%; 26.2%) for ages 5 -10 and 18.1% (95%CI 16.4%; 19.9%) for ages 11-17. The prevalence of overweight or obese is 44.7 percent in ages 0-4 years old, 38.9% in ages 5-10, and 31.4% in ages 11-17. The OR obtained from the association between asthma and obesity was 1.236 (95% CI 1.2217; 1.255, p< o.oo1) which indicated an statistically significant relationship between asthma and obesity. Findings suggest that children with asthma are more likely to be obese. More research is needed to explain specific mechanisms that intervene between asthma and obesity. Nevertheless, when there is an intervention with either one, the other condition should be taken into consideration.