Journal article
Incidence rates of asthma, rhinitis and eczema symptoms and influential factors in young children in Sweden
Aim: To estimate the incidence rates for asthma, rhinitis and eczema symptoms and to investigate the importance of different influential factors for the incidence of these symptoms. Methods: The Dampness in Building and Health study commenced in the year 2000 in Varmland, Sweden with a parental questionnaire based on an ISAAC protocol to all children in the age of 1-6 years.
Five years later a follow-up questionnaire was sent to the children that were 1-3 years at baseline. In total, 4779 children (response rate = 73%) participated in both surveys and constitute the study population in this cohort study. Results: The 5-year incidence of doctor-diagnosed asthma was 4.9% (95% CI 4.3-5.3), rhinitis was 5.7% (5.0-6.4) and eczema was 13.4% (12.3-14.5).
However, incidence rates strongly depend on the health status of the baseline population. Risk factors for incident asthma were male gender and short period of breast-feeding. Allergic symptoms in parents were also a strong risk factor for incident asthma, as well as for rhinitis and eczema. Conclusion: When comparing incident rates of asthma between different studies it is important to realize that different definitions of the healthy baseline population will give rise to different incident rates.
Language: | English |
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Year: | 2008 |
Pages: | 1210-1215 |
ISSN: | 16512227 , 08035253 and 08035326 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.1651-2227.2008.00910.x |
ORCIDs: | 0000-0002-2043-7571 |