Pathways through which asthma risk factors contribute to asthma severity in inner-city children
Recommended Citation
Liu AH, Babineau DC, Krouse RZ, Zoratti EM, Pongracic JA, O'Connor GT, Wood RA, Khurana Hershey GK, Kercsmar CM, Gruchalla RS, Kattan M, Teach SJ, Makhija M, Pillai D, Lamm CI, Gern JE, Sigelman SM, Gergen PJ, Togias A, Visness CM, and Busse WW. Pathways through which asthma risk factors contribute to asthma severity in inner-city children. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2016; 138(4):1042-1050.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2016
Publication Title
The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Pathway analyses can be used to determine how host and environmental factors contribute to asthma severity.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate pathways explaining asthma severity in inner-city children.
METHODS: On the basis of medical evidence in the published literature, we developed a conceptual model to describe how 8 risk-factor domains (allergen sensitization, allergic inflammation, pulmonary physiology, stress, obesity, vitamin D, environmental tobacco smoke [ETS] exposure, and rhinitis severity) are linked to asthma severity. To estimate the relative magnitude and significance of hypothesized relationships among these domains and asthma severity, we applied a causal network analysis to test our model in an Inner-City Asthma Consortium study. Participants comprised 6- to 17-year-old children (n = 561) with asthma and rhinitis from 9 US inner cities who were evaluated every 2 months for 1 year. Asthma severity was measured by a longitudinal composite assessment of day and night symptoms, exacerbations, and controller usage.
RESULTS: Our conceptual model explained 53.4% of the variance in asthma severity. An allergy pathway (linking allergen sensitization, allergic inflammation, pulmonary physiology, and rhinitis severity domains to asthma severity) and the ETS exposure pathway (linking ETS exposure and pulmonary physiology domains to asthma severity) exerted significant effects on asthma severity. Among the domains, pulmonary physiology and rhinitis severity had the largest significant standardized total effects on asthma severity (-0.51 and 0.48, respectively), followed by ETS exposure (0.30) and allergic inflammation (0.22). Although vitamin D had modest but significant indirect effects on asthma severity, its total effect was insignificant (0.01).
CONCLUSIONS: The standardized effect sizes generated by a causal network analysis quantify the relative contributions of different domains and can be used to prioritize interventions to address asthma severity.
Medical Subject Headings
Adolescent; Asthma; Child; Disease Management; Environmental Exposure; Female; Humans; Male; Models, Theoretical; Poverty; Rhinitis, Allergic, Perennial; Risk Factors; Severity of Illness Index; Tobacco Smoke Pollution; Urban Population
PubMed ID
27720018
Volume
138
Issue
4
First Page
1042
Last Page
1050
