The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Volume 121, Issue 3 , Pages 639-645.e1 , March 2008

Geographic variability in childhood asthma prevalence in Chicago

  • Ruchi S. Gupta, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Institute for Healthcare Studies, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Ill
    • Smith Child Health Research Program, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Ill
    • Corresponding Author InformationReprint requests: Ruchi S. Gupta, MD, MPH, Children's Memorial Hospital, 2300 Children's Plaza, Box 157, Chicago, IL 60614.
    • ,
  • Xingyou Zhang, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Robert Graham Center: Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care, American Academy of Family Physicians, Washington, DC
    • ,
  • Lisa K. Sharp, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Medicine, Section on Health Promotion, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Ill
    • ,
  • John J. Shannon, MD

      Affiliations

    • Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Cook County Hospital, Chicago, Ill
    • ,
  • Kevin B. Weiss, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Institute for Healthcare Studies, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Ill
    • Division of General Internal Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Ill
    • Midwest Center for Health Services and Policy Research, US Department of Veterans Affairs, Edward Hines, Jr VA Hospital, Hines, Ill

Received 23 May 2007 ,Revised 8 November 2007 ,Accepted 12 November 2007.

References 

  1. Akinbami L. The state of childhood asthma, United States, 1980-2005. Adv Data. 2006;381:1–24
  2. Akinbami LJ, Schoendorf KC. Trends in childhood asthma: prevalence, health care utilization, and mortality. Pediatrics. 2002;110:315–322
  3. Byrd RS, Joad JP. Urban asthma. Curr Opin Pulm Med. 2006;12:68–74
  4. Migliaretti G, Cavallo F. Urban air pollution and asthma in children. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2004;38:198–203
  5. Grant EN, Malone A, Lyttle CS, Weiss KB. Asthma morbidity and treatment in the Chicago metropolitan area: one decade after national guidelines. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2005;95:19–25
  6. Claudio L, Stingone JA, Godbold J. Prevalence of childhood asthma in urban communities: the impact of ethnicity and income. Ann Epidemiol. 2006;16:332–340
  7. Weiss KB, Wagener DK. Changing patterns of asthma mortality: identifying target populations at high risk. JAMA. 1990;264:1683–1687
  8. Marder D, Targonski P, Orris P, Persky V, Addington W. Effect of racial and socioeconomic factors on asthma mortality in Chicago. Chest. 1992;101(suppl):426S–429S
  9. Targonski PV, Persky VW, Orris P, Addington W. Trends in asthma mortality among African Americans and whites in Chicago, 1968 through 1991. Am J Public Health. 1994;84:1830–1833
  10. Weiss KB, Wagener DK. Asthma surveillance in the United States: a review of current trends and knowledge gaps. Chest. 1990;98(suppl):179S–184S
  11. Thomas SD, Whitman S. Asthma hospitalizations and mortality in Chicago: an epidemiologic overview. Chest. 1999;116(suppl 1):135S–141S
  12. Shah AM, Whitman S, Silva A. Variations in the health conditions of 6 Chicago community areas: a case for local-level data. Am J Public Health. 2006;96:1485–1491
  13. Shalowitz MU, Sadowski LM, Kumar R, Weiss KB, Shannon JJ. Asthma burden in a citywide, diverse sample of elementary schoolchildren in Chicago. Ambul Pediatr. 2007;7:271–277
  14. Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Institute for Social Research. Available at: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/PHDCN/about.html. Accessed March 5, 2007.
  15. Anselin L. Local indicators of spatial association (LISA [J]). Geog Anal. 1995;27:93–115
  16. Larsen K, Merlo J. Appropriate assessment of neighborhood effects on individual health: integrating random and fixed effects in multilevel logistic regression. Am J Epidemiol. 2005;161:81–88
  17. Larsen K, Petersen JH, Budtz-Jorgensen E, Endahl L. Interpreting parameters in the logistic regression model with random effects. Biometrics. 2000;56:909–914
  18. Gold DR, Wright R. Population disparities in asthma. Annu Rev Public Health. 2005;26:89–113
  19. Weiss KB, Gergen PJ, Wagener DK. Breathing better or wheezing worse? the changing epidemiology of asthma morbidity and mortality. Annu Rev Public Health. 1993;14:491–513
  20. Worldwide variation in prevalence of symptoms of asthma, allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, and atopic eczema: ISAAC. The International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) Steering Committee. Lancet. 1998;351:1225–1232
  21. Aligne CA, Auinger P, Byrd RS, Weitzman M. Risk factors for pediatric asthma: contributions of poverty, race, and urban residence. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2000;162:873–877
  22. Smith LA, Hatcher-Ross JL, Wertheimer R, Kahn RS. Rethinking race/ethnicity, income, and childhood asthma: racial/ethnic disparities concentrated among the very poor. Public Health Rep. 2005;120:109–116
  23. Chen E, Chim LS, Strunk RC, Miller GE. The role of the social environment in children and adolescents with asthma. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2007;176:644–649
  24. Chen E, Martin AD, Matthews KA. Trajectories of socioeconomic status across children's lifetime predict health. Pediatrics. 2007;120:e297–e303
  25. Gauderman WJ, Avol E, Gilliland F, Vora H, Thomas D, Berhane K, et al. The effect of air pollution on lung development from 10 to 18 years of age. N Engl J Med. 2004;351:1057–1067
  26. Ryan PH, LeMasters G, Biagini J, Bernstein D, Grinshpun S, Shukla R, et al. Is it traffic type, volume, or distance? wheezing in infants living near truck and bus traffic. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2005;116:279–284
  27. Hirsch T, Weiland SK, von Mutius E, Safeca AF, Gräfe H, Csaplovics E, et al. Inner city air pollution and respiratory health and atopy in children. Eur Respir J. 1999;14:669–677
  28. Tatum AJ, Shapiro GG. The effects of outdoor air pollution and tobacco smoke on asthma. Immunol Allergy Clin North Am. 2005;25:15–30
  29. Venn AJ, Lewis SA, Cooper M, Hubbard R, Britton J. Living near a main road and the risk of wheezing illness in children. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2001;164:2177–2180
  30. Gruchalla RS, Pongracic J, Plaut M, Evans R, Visness C, Walter M, et al. Inner City Asthma Study: relationships among sensitivity, allergen exposure, and asthma morbidity. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2005;115:478–485
  31. Litonjua AA, Carey VJ, Burge HA, Weiss ST, Gold DR. Exposure to cockroach allergen in the home is associated with incident doctor-diagnosed asthma and recurrent wheezing. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2001;107:41–47
  32. Morgan WJ, Crain EF, Gruchalla RS, O'Connor GT, Kattan M, Evans R, et al. Results of a home-based environmental intervention among urban children with asthma. N Engl J Med. 2004;351:1068–1080
  33. Lau S, Illi S, Sommerfeld C, Niggemann B, Bergmann R, von Mutius E, et al. Early exposure to house-dust mite and cat allergens and development of childhood asthma: a cohort study. Multicentre Allergy Study Group. Lancet. 2000;356:1392–1397
  34. Eder W, Ege MJ, von Mutius E. The asthma epidemic. N Engl J Med. 2006;355:2226–2235
  35. Matsui EC, Wood RA, Rand C, Kanchanaraksa S, Swartz L, Eggleston PA. Mouse allergen exposure and mouse skin test sensitivity in suburban, middle-class children with asthma. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2004;113:910–915
  36. Perry T, Matsui E, Merriman B, Duong T, Eggleston P. The prevalence of rat allergen in inner-city homes and its relationship to sensitization and asthma morbidity. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2003;112:346–352
  37. Braun-Fahrlander C, Riedler J, Herz U, Eder W, Waser M, Grize L, et al. Environmental exposure to endotoxin and its relation to asthma in school-age children. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:869–877
  38. Weiss ST. Eat dirt: the hygiene hypothesis and allergic diseases. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:930–931
  39. Strachan DP. Family size, infection and atopy: the first decade of the “hygiene hypothesis.”. Thorax. 2000;55(suppl 1):S2–S10
  40. Almqvist C, Pershagen G, Wickman M. Low socioeconomic status as a risk factor for asthma, rhinitis and sensitization at 4 years in a birth cohort. Clin Exp Allergy. 2005;35:612–618
  41. Cesaroni G, Farchi S, Davoli M, Forastiere F, Perucci CA. Individual and area-based indicators of socioeconomic status and childhood asthma. Eur Respir J. 2003;22:619–624
  42. Wright RJ, Mitchell H, Visness CM, Cohen S, Stout J, Evans R, et al. Community violence and asthma morbidity: the Inner-City Asthma Study. Am J Public Health. 2004;94:625–632
  43. Wright RJ, Steinbach SF. Violence: an unrecognized environmental exposure that may contribute to greater asthma morbidity in high risk inner-city populations. Environ Health Perspect. 2001;109:1085–1089
  44. Debley JS, Redding GJ, Critchlow CW. Impact of adolescence and gender on asthma hospitalization: a population-based birth cohort study. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2004;38:443–450
  45. Fagan JK, Scheff PA, Hryhorczuk D, Ramakrishnan V, Ross M, Persky V. Prevalence of asthma and other allergic diseases in an adolescent population: association with gender and race. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2001;86:177–184
  46. Miller JE. The effects of race/ethnicity and income on early childhood asthma prevalence and health care use. Am J Public Health. 2000;90:428–430
  47. Persky VW, Slezak J, Contreras A, Becker L, Hernandez E, Ramakrishnan V, et al. Relationships of race and socioeconomic status with prevalence, severity, and symptoms of asthma in Chicago school children. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 1998;81:266–271
  48. Bener A, Janahi IA, Sabbah A. Genetics and environmental risk factors associated with asthma in schoolchildren. Allerg Immunol (Paris). 2005;37:163–168
  49. Gilmour MI, Jaakkola MS, London SJ, Nel AE, Rogers CA. How exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, outdoor air pollutants, and increased pollen burdens influences the incidence of asthma. Environ Health Perspect. 2006;114:627–633
  50. Cook DG, Strachan DP. Health effects of passive smoking, 3: parental smoking and prevalence of respiratory symptoms and asthma in school age children. Thorax. 1997;52:1081–1094
  51. Black PN, Sharpe S. Dietary fat and asthma: is there a connection?. Eur Respir J. 1997;10:6–12
  52. Mihrshahi S, Peat JK, Marks GB, et al. Eighteen-month outcomes of house dust mite avoidance and dietary fatty acid modification in the Childhood Asthma Prevention Study (CAPS). J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2003;111:162–168
  53. Wright RJ, Rodriguez M, Cohen S. Review of psychosocial stress and asthma: an integrated biopsychosocial approach. Thorax. 1998;53:1066–1074
  54. Wright RJ, Cohen S, Carey V, Weiss ST, Gold DR. Parental stress as a predictor of wheezing in infancy: a prospective birth-cohort study. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2002;165:358–365
  55. Gupta RS, Carrion-Carire V, Weiss KB. The widening black/white gap in asthma hospitalizations and mortality. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2006;117:351–358

 The Chicago Initiative to Raise Asthma Health Equity is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 5U01 HL072478-05. R.S.G. is supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development through a Child Health Research Career Development Award, “Faculty Development Program for Pediatric Clinician-Scientists,” K12 HD052902.

 Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: J. J. Shannon receives grants/research support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Asthma Disparities Front and is employed by Parkland Health and Hospital System. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.

PII: S0091-6749(07)03572-5

doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2007.11.036

The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Volume 121, Issue 3 , Pages 639-645.e1 , March 2008

Article Tools

* Image Usage & Resolution