Untreated Allergy Among Middle School Students: Associations with Socioeconomic Adversities and Academic, Behavior, and Health Difficulties.

Background: Many adolescents with allergy do not receive physician treatment (allergy _untreated ). We explored its association with socioeconomic adversities and academic-behavior-health difficulties, which remain unaddressed.
Methods: This cross-sectional school-based-population study compared the above factors of middle-school adolescents with allergy _untreated and those with treated allergy (allergy _treated ) (mean age = 13.5 ± 1.2) from north-eastern France. Participants completed a questionnaire collecting socioeconomic adversities (nonintact family, low parents' education, insufficient family income, poor social support, suffered verbal/physical violence, and sexual abuse), low academic performance, excessive screen time, substance use, sleep difficulty, poor physical health, depressive symptoms, suicide attempt, poor quality of life, and allergy _treated /allergy _untreated .
Results: Logistic regression models showed that allergy _untreated was associated with all the factors considered (sex-age-class-level-adjusted odds ratio (saclOR) reaching 3.94, p < .001) and the risk score (number of main criteria: suffered sexual abuse, excessive screen time, poor quality of life, cannabis use, low parents' education, and poor social support): saclOR 4.75, 9.23, 15.64, and 31.73 (p < .001) for risk scores 1, 2, 3, and ≥4, versus risk score = 0 (pseudo-R ²  = 11.1%).
Conclusions: Socioeconomic adversities and academic-behavior-health difficulties may be used to detect adolescents with allergy _untreated for care.
(© 2024, American School Health Association.)