Urinary Arsenic Concentration and Its Relationship with Bronchial Asthma in Children from Arica, Chile

Abstract

In the city of Arica, northern Chile, the population has been involuntarily exposed to arsenic of natural and anthropogenic origin. This study aims to evaluate the association between urinary arsenic concentration and bronchial asthma diagnosis in the children of Arica. A cross-sectional analysis of a database of 1892 subjects under 18 years of age enrolled in the Environmental Health Centre between 2009 and 2021 was carried out. Arsenic exposure was obtained from a urine sample and bronchial asthma diagnosis from the database of the system for the management of explicit health guarantees. Logistic regression models were used to assess the association between inorganic arsenic and asthma. The median inorganic arsenic was 15 μg/L, and the prevalence of asthma was 7.4%. After adjusting for sex, age, ethnicity, and urinary creatinine, children with the highest tertile of urinary arsenic concentration (≥21.4 μg/L) had a greater chance of developing asthma (odds ratio (OR) 1.90; 95% confidence interval (CI) [1.13–3.18]). When exploring the modifying effect of ethnicity, the association increased among children belonging to any ethnic group (OR 3.51, 95%CI [1.43–8.65]). These findings suggest a relationship between arsenic exposure and bronchial asthma in children. While further studies are needed to assess the impact of arsenic on respiratory health, mitigation efforts to reduce arsenic exposure should be maintained.

Temporal Trends of Asthma Among Children in the Western Pacific Region From 1990 to 2045: Longitudinal Observational Study

“…Recent findings from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 show that over the past 30 years, the prevalence of childhood asthma has increased by 12.6%, with >262 million people currently affected worldwide [5]. The reasons for the growing asthma epidemic remain complex and multifactorial and are linked to rising air pollution, urbanization, tobacco smoke exposure, genetics, overuse of antibiotics, and other modern lifestyle factors [6,7]. Careful analysis of recent global and regional trends in childhood asthma prevalence, morbidity, mortality, and projections can inform priority areas for intervention to alleviate this rising disease burden.…”