Prevalence, demographics, and health outcomes of pediatric asthma and overweight in urban communities

Background: Asthma and obesity are highly prevalent, often comorbidly, among urban children, yet studies of the relationship between these two conditions have produced conflicting results. A deeper understanding of the comorbid population is necessary.

Objective: To construct demographic and health profiles of overweight asthmatic children and identify disparities in health outcomes or behaviors.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of children in 26 New York City public elementary schools using a parent-report questionnaire focusing on demographic characteristics, asthma diagnosis, and asthma-related health outcomes and medication use. Parent-reported height and weight were used to calculate the children's age- and gender-specific anthropometric indices of Body Mass Index (BMI) based on 2000 CDC growth charts.

Results: Among 2893 respondents, 10.6% were asthmatics and 50.9% were overweight. Overweight children were 60% more likely than healthy weight children to have current asthma. The prevalence of the comorbidity was 6.22%. Overweight asthmatics had more night symptoms, missed school days, reliever and controller medication use, and emergency department use than healthy weight asthmatics. The comorbidities were most prevalent among males, Latinos, and children from low-income households.

Conclusions: Although this study does not show directionality between asthma and obesity, it clearly shows that children who are overweight and asthmatic exhibit poorly controlled asthma and experience adverse asthma-related outcomes more commonly than healthy weight asthmatics. Low-income and Latino children are disproportionately represented in the comorbidity group.