Asthma is a chronic (long-term) condition that affects the airways in the lungs. Asthma affects people of all ages and often starts during childhood.
While many studies have focused on people that already have asthma, it’s also important to know who is at highest risk of getting asthma, so that researchers and doctors can better understand how to prevent it.
To shed light on this topic, ECHO researchers Chris Johnson, PhD, MPH of Henry Ford Health System and Aruna Chandran, MD, MPH of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and their team studied which children are at highest risk for getting asthma across the United States. Find their research in JAMA Pediatrics.
To conduct this research, the team gathered information from 24,635 children who were younger than 18 years old and taking part in 31 studies following children over time as part of the ECHO Program. Children shared the age at which they first learned from a doctor they had asthma, as well as their sex, race, and the state in which they lived. Researchers also collected information on their parents’ history of asthma.
“This research opened our eyes to information that was not known before about what groups of children were more likely to get a new asthma diagnosis as they grew up,” said Johnson.
The study found that children with at least one parent with a history of asthma had two to three times higher rates of asthma. This higher risk with family history of asthma mostly affected younger children through age 4. The rates for boys went down with age, but rates for girls stayed about the same. Black children were diagnosed with asthma more than white children during preschool years, but less than white children after age 9-10 years.
“This study adds to our understanding of new cases of asthma. We show that young black children with a parental history have the highest rates,” said Chandran. “Doctors and scientists can use this to focus on helping children at highest risk, working on programs for young children with a focus on Black children whose parents also have asthma.”
If you would like to learn more about asthma in children, please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website. You may also view this video on asthma from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).