Eldeirawi Kamal, McConnell Rob, Furner Sylvia, Freels Sally, Stayner Leslie, Hernandez Eva, Amoruso Lisa, Torres Shioban, Persky Victoria W
Health Systems Science, College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
J Asthma. 2009 Oct;46(8):796-802.
Among Mexican Americans in the United States, children who were born in the US had higher rates of asthma than their Mexico-born peers. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of doctor-diagnosed asthma with immigration-related variables and to investigate whether these associations could be explained by factors that may change with migration.
We surveyed parents of 2,023 school children of Mexican descent and examined the associations of asthma with nativity, age at immigration, and length of residence in the US after adjusting for potential confounding variables.
In multivariate analyses, US-born children had a 2.42-fold (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.52-3.83) increased odds of asthma compared with their Mexico-born peers. Mexico-born participants who moved to the US before 2 years of age were almost twice as likely to experience asthma compared with Mexico-born children who moved to the US >or=2 years of age. In addition, Mexico-born participants who lived in the US for 10 years or more were 2.37 times more likely to have asthma than Mexico-born students who lived in the US for less than 10 years. These associations were not explained by a wide variety of factors such as place of residence in infancy; exposure to animals/pets; history of infections, Tylenol use, and antibiotic use in infancy; breastfeeding; exposure to environmental tobacco smoke; daycare attendance and number of siblings; and language use.
Our findings point to the effects of nativity, age at immigration, and duration of residence in the US on the risk of asthma in Mexican American children, suggesting that potentially modifiable factors that change with migration may be linked with the disease. The findings of this study should stimulate further research to explain factors that may be responsible for the observed differentials in the risk of asthma among Mexican Americans.
在美国的墨西哥裔美国人中，在美国出生的儿童患哮喘的几率高于在墨西哥出生的同龄人。本研究的目的是检验医生诊断的哮喘与移民相关变量之间的关联，并调查这些关联是否可以由可能随移民而变化的因素来解释。
我们对2023名墨西哥裔学龄儿童的家长进行了调查，并在调整了潜在的混杂变量后，研究了哮喘与出生地、移民年龄以及在美国的居住时长之间的关联。
在多变量分析中，与在墨西哥出生的同龄人相比，在美国出生的儿童患哮喘的几率增加了2.42倍（95%置信区间[CI]：1.52 - 3.83）。与2岁及以上移民到美国的墨西哥出生儿童相比，2岁前移民到美国的墨西哥出生参与者患哮喘的可能性几乎高出一倍。此外，在美国居住10年或更长时间的墨西哥出生参与者患哮喘的可能性是在美国居住不到10年的墨西哥出生学生的2.37倍。这些关联无法由多种因素来解释，如婴儿期居住地点；接触动物/宠物；婴儿期感染史、使用泰诺和抗生素的情况；母乳喂养；接触环境烟草烟雾；日托情况和兄弟姐妹数量；以及语言使用情况。
我们的研究结果表明出生地、移民年龄以及在美国的居住时长对墨西哥裔美国儿童患哮喘风险有影响，这表明可能随移民而变化的潜在可改变因素可能与该疾病有关。本研究结果应促使进一步开展研究，以解释可能导致墨西哥裔美国人哮喘风险存在差异的因素。
