Young children – between two and four – suffered the highest rates of asthma with recurrent exacerbations (ARE) over a nearly 30-year period according to new research by the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) programme at the National Institutes of Health.
“Describing the incidence rates of ARE across a large, diverse population of children is a critical first step for identifying potential risk factors and causes,” said Christine Johnson, PhD, MPH, an ECHO Programme Investigator at Henry Ford Health.
During this study, ECHO researchers looked at data from over 17,000 children between 1990 and 2017 from across the US to learn which factors influenced the rates of childhood ARE. They found that non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic Black children, those between two and four and children who lived in the north-east and Midwest had the highest rates of ARE.
These findings suggest that different environmental and social factors may play a significant role in the onset of recurring asthma issues in children.
“Understanding these causes will help researchers determine how to best prevent ARE and associated asthma outcomes,” added Rachel L. Miller, MD, an ECHO Programme investigator at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.