Family Size, Infections, and Asthma Prevalence in New Zealand Children

Wickens, Kristin; Crane, Julian; Kemp, Trudi; Lewis, Simon J.G.; D’Souza, Wendyl; Sawyer, Gillian; Stone, Michael E.; Tohill, Sarah; Kennedy, Josephine C.; Slater, Tania; Pearce, Neil

doi:10.1097/00001648-199911000-00009

Cited by 71 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Our finding of an increased asthma risk for early transient wheezing with day care attendance agrees with the findings of several crosssectional studies (Nafstad et al 1999;Wickens et al 1999). Moreover, we observed that the risk of asthma is highest when children were sent to day care centers before 4 months of age.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

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Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Salam

Langholz

et al. 2004

Environ Health Perspect

180

107

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Early-life experiences and environmental exposures have been associated with childhood asthma. To investigate further whether the timing of such experiences and exposures is associated with the occurrence of asthma by 5 years of age, we conducted a prevalence case-control study nested within the Children's Health Study, a population-based study of > 4,000 school-aged children in 12 southern California communities. Cases were defined as physician-diagnosed asthma by age 5, and controls were asthma-free at study entry, frequency-matched on age, sex, and community of residence and countermatched on in utero exposure to maternal smoking. Telephone interviews were conducted with mothers to collect additional exposure and asthma histories. Conditional logistic regression models were fitted to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Asthma diagnosis before 5 years of age was associated with exposures in the first year of life to wood or oil smoke, soot, or exhaust (

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Our finding of a protective role of sibship size on asthma is consistent with the results of many epidemiologic studies (Infante-Rivard et al 2001;Wickens et al 1999). Infections from older siblings during early life have been proposed to prevent asthma by enhancing the T H 1-mediated immunity (Strachan 2000).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Salam

Langholz

et al. 2004

Environ Health Perspect

180

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…10,11 Because all of these factors were potential confounders in risk factors analyses, they were controlled as covariates. Although not statically significant, maternal smoking during pregnancy was also a positive predictor of asthma in our population, which was consistent with the finding in a recent report from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood.…”

Section: E392mentioning

confidence: 99%

Indoor and Outdoor Environmental Exposures, Parental Atopy, and Physician-Diagnosed Asthma in Taiwanese Schoolchildren

et al. 2003

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ABSTRACT. Objective. Parental atopy and environmental exposures are recognized risk factors for childhood asthma. However, the relative contributions of specific risk factors and the overall contributions of indoor and outdoor exposures remain unexplored. This study was undertaken to identify risk factors, estimate the population attributable risk of each exposure, and compare the data for boys versus girls for physician-diagnosed asthma in Taiwanese schoolchildren.Methods. During a February to June 2001 cross-sectional national survey, 35 036 6-to 15-year-old schoolchildren were chosen from 22 elementary and 22 middle schools located within 1-km catchment areas of 22 airmonitoring stations in Taiwan. The main outcome measure was physician-diagnosed asthma, as reported by the parents. We investigated hereditary and indoor and outdoor environmental factors for childhood asthma by questionnaire. The adjusted prevalences of questionnaire-determined outdoor indicators were also compared with air-monitoring data.Results. Outdoor air pollutants were associated with parent-reported perceived ambient air pollution. Physician-diagnosed asthma was reported for 8.1% of the boys (1330 of 16 441) and 5.6% of the girls (894 of 16 056). The risk of physician-diagnosed asthma was significantly associated with parental atopy and perceived ambient air pollution in both sexes. A sthma is the single most common chronic childhood disease in developed nations, 1,2 and its prevalence and severity have been reported as increasing in many countries. [3][4][5][6] The changing pattern of the disease has not been fully explained, in part because of an incomplete understanding of its pathogenesis. The change has been too rapid to be accounted for by changes in gene frequencies. It is also unlikely that the increase can be totally accounted for by changes in either clinical diagnostic patterns or increased recognition of asthma symptoms by the general population. 7 This does, however, suggest a role for environmental exposures in the cause of this evolving epidemic. 8 Many factors have been proved to be associated with the prevalence and/or attacks of asthma, including personal factors (smoking habits, genetics, age, sex, nutritional status, number of siblings, coexisting lung disease, lifestyle, allergy status, family history, and occupation) and environmental stimuli (house dust, animal danders, molds, cockroach infestation, occupational exposure, environmental tobacco smoke, indoor/outdoor air pollution, cooking fumes, aeroallergens, and climate). 9 -29 Both genetic and environmental factors are believed to contribute to the relationship. However, epidemiologic evidence concerning different effects in boys and girls in relationships between environmental exposures and childhood asthma was insufficient and warranted additional investigations.The first aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between physician-diagnosed asthma and selected risk factors in a population-based sample of 6-to 15-year-old elementary-and middleschool...

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“…22,23 These included gender, social class, maternal and paternal asthma, family size, child care use in the first year of life, whooping cough and measles infection, hepatitis B, polio and MMR vaccination, sheepskin use in the first year of life, current use of a waterbed or plastic sheet on the mattress, age of mattress and any current smoking in the house. Sibling asthma, hayfever or eczema were not included in the model because information on maternal and paternal asthma, eczema and hayfever was available to allow for direct control for family history of asthma.…”

Section: Multivariate Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

A case‐control study of risk factors for asthma in New Zealand children

Wickens¹,

Crane²,

Kemp³

et al. 2001

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health

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Objective : As in other English‐speaking countries, asthma is a major and increasing health problem in New Zealand. This study examined the risk factors for asthma in children aged 7–9. Methods : Cases and controls were randomly selected from participants in the Wellington arm of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC). Cases were children with a previous diagnosis of asthma and current medication use (n=233), and controls were children with no history of wheezing and no diagnosis of asthma (n=241). Results : After controlling for confounders, factors significantly associated with asthma were maternal (OR=3.36, 95% Cl 1.88–5.99) and paternal asthma (OR=2.67, 95% Cl 1.42–5.02), and male sex (OR=1.81, 95% Cl 1.17–2.81). Children from social classes 5 and 6 or with unemployed parents (OR=2.32, 95% Cl 1.22–4.44) were significantly more likely to have asthma than children in social classes 1 and 2. There was no significant association between having polio vaccination (OR=2.48, 95% Cl 0.83–7.41), hepatitis B vaccination (OR=0.66, 95% Cl 0.42–1.04) or measles/mumps/rubella vaccination (OR=1.43, 95% Cl 0.85–2.41) and asthma. Conclusions : This study has confirmed the associations of family history and lower socio‐economic status with current asthma in 7–9 year old children. The role of vaccinations requires further research.

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Family Size, Infections, and Asthma Prevalence in New Zealand Children

Cited by 71 publications

References 15 publications

Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Early-life environmental risk factors for asthma: findings from the Children's Health Study.

Indoor and Outdoor Environmental Exposures, Parental Atopy, and Physician-Diagnosed Asthma in Taiwanese Schoolchildren

A case‐control study of risk factors for asthma in New Zealand children

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