Premium
Differing asthma prevalence by gross national index of country of birth among N ew Y ork C ity residents
Author(s) -
Chang M.,
Kelvin E. A.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
allergy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.363
H-Index - 173
eISSN - 1398-9995
pISSN - 0105-4538
DOI - 10.1111/all.12367
Subject(s) - asthma , hygiene hypothesis , medicine , demography , logistic regression , hygiene , odds ratio , odds , immigration , gross national income , environmental health , gerontology , developing country , immunology , geography , economic growth , archaeology , pathology , sociology , economics
Background The hygiene hypothesis suggests that higher exposure to infectious agents may be one reason for regional differences in asthma. This would suggest that immigrants from less developed countries, where infections are more common, to highly developed countries will have lower risk of asthma compared with natives, as has been found in a number of studies. We expand the research on immigrants to look at the level of development in country of origin as a predictor of asthma in N ew Y ork C ity residents. Methods Data came from the 2009 cross‐sectional C ommunity H ealth S urvey. We used logistic regression to assess the relationship of country of birth and the gross national income ( GNI ), an indicator of the level of development, of country of birth with asthma among immigrants and US ‐born N ew Y ork C ity residents. Results Those who were foreign born had lower odds of having asthma compared with those US born (OR = 0.43, P < 0.001). There was a dose relationship between GNI and asthma with decreasing odds of having asthma associated with lower GNI in country of birth (low GNI country: OR = 0.26, P = 0.014; middle GNI country: OR = 0.36, P < 0.001; and high GNI country = reference). Conclusions These findings lend support to the hygiene hypothesis in that the odds of having asthma among N ew Y ork C ity residents was lowest among people born in the least developed countries, as indicated by GNI , where infections are likely the most common.