1. Co-occurrence of autism and asthma in a nationally-representative sample of children in the United States
- Author
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Kotey, Stanley, Ertel, Karen, and Whitcomb, Brian
- Subjects
Asthma in children -- Distribution -- Research ,Comorbidity -- Distribution -- Research ,Autism -- Distribution -- Research ,Company distribution practices ,Health - Abstract
Few large epidemiological studies have examined the co-occurrence of autism and asthma. We performed a cross-sectional study to examine this association using the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health dataset (n = 77,951). We controlled for confounders and tested for autism-secondhand smoke interaction. Prevalence of asthma and autism were 14.5 % (n = 11,335) and 1.81 % (n = 1,412) respectively. Unadjusted odds ratio (OR) for asthma among autistic children was 1.35(95 % CI 1.18-1.55). Adjusting for covariates (age, gender, body mass index, race, brain injury, secondhand smoke and socio-economic status) attenuated the OR to 1.19 (95 % CI 1.03-1.36). Autism-secondhand smoke interaction was insignificant (p = 0.38). Asthma is approximately 35 % more common in autistic children; screening may be an efficient approach to reduce risk of morbidity due to asthma. Keywords Autism * Asthma * Autoimmune * Screening * Allergy, Introduction Asthma is the second leading cause of hospital admissions of children in the US and places a large burden on affected children and their families ('Hospital Stays for Children [...]
- Published
- 2014
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