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The relative importance of socio‐economic status, parental smoking and air pollution (SO 2 ) on asthma symptoms, spirometry and bronchodilator response in 11‐year‐old children
Author(s) -
GarcíaMarcos Luis,
Guillén José J.,
Dinwiddie Robert,
Guillén Agustín,
Barbero Paloma
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
pediatric allergy and immunology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.269
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1399-3038
pISSN - 0905-6157
DOI - 10.1034/j.1399-3038.1999.00024.x
Subject(s) - bronchodilator , medicine , spirometry , fenoterol , asthma , relative risk , logistic regression , environmental health , demography , pediatrics , confidence interval , sociology
The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative contribution of several risk factors to the prevalence of allergic respiratory symptoms, and the positivity of the bronchodilator test with fenoterol, and to establish the relative importance of these factors on the variability of FVC, FEV 1 , PEF, MEF 25 , MEF 50 and MEF 75 . A total of 340 11‐year‐old children attending school in polluted and non‐polluted areas of the city of Cartagena, Spain, were studied. The polluted area had had an annual mean of 75 μg/m 3 of SO 2 over the last 10 years and the non‐polluted area had < 20 μg/m 3 during this period. A questionnaire about allergic respiratory symptoms was completed by the parents. Specific questions about parental smoking habits and socio‐economic level were included. Each child’s performance in spirometry before and after administration of 0.2 mg of inhaled fenoterol was evaluated. The only significant predictive variables in the logistic regression (for suffering any symptom or a positive bronchodilator response) were male sex for nasal symptoms (RR 1.37; p = 0.04) and housing near heavy traffic for eye symptoms (RR 1.45; p = 0.01). Living in the polluted area reduced the risk of a positive bronchodilator response (RR 0.61; p = 0.004). Maternal smoking, even though not statistically significant, tended to increased the risk of suffering any symptom (RR 1.26; p = 0.07) or of having a positive bronchodilator response (RR 1.23; p = 0.1). None of the risk factors studied was of significant importance in explaining the variability of spirometry results. Although none of the risk factors were specifically determinant to the symptom questions, bronchodilator test or spirometric measurements, having a mother who smokes seems more important than living in a polluted area if statistically non‐significant trends are considered.