Snoring linked to asthma severity among inner-city children
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Snoring appeared common among urban, school-aged children and was associated with greater asthma burden, according to study results published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
“Very little is known about the impact of snoring and sleep-disordered breathing in children and asthma morbidity,” Wanda Phipatanakul, MD, MS, researcher in the division of allergy and immunology at Boston Children’s Hospital, told Healio.
What is known is that asthma and sleep-disordered breathing are bidirectionally associated conditions that are common during childhood and disproportionately affect minorities, according to study background.
Phipatanakul and colleagues sought to assess the association between snoring frequency and asthma morbidity among 339 children (mean age, 7.9 years; 53.4% male; 36.3% Hispanic; 35.1% Black) included in the School Inner-City Asthma Study — a longitudinal prospective cohort study of children with persistent asthma who attended U.S. Northeast schools during 2008 and 2013. Most (72.2%) lived in a household with an annual income below $45,000, 49.3% had overweight or obesity, and 65.5% had atopy.
Researchers collected baseline assessments of asthma symptoms, snoring and allergy status, and caregivers conducted quarterly surveys for 1 year on symptoms of asthma, snoring and health outcomes.
Researchers used mixed-effects models to assess snoring frequency — categorized as non-, rare-, sometimes- or habitual-snoring — and the association with asthma symptoms and morbidity.
Results showed nearly one-quarter (24.8%) of the cohort reported habitual snoring, although researchers noted reports of snoring frequency varied throughout the study period.
Compared with nonsnoring and all other snoring category days, habitual snoring days were associated with an increased odds for also being days with maximum asthma symptom (OR = 1.58; 95% CI, 1.19-2.1).
Moreover, compared with nonsnoring, habitual snoring was associated with greater odds of health care use (incidence RR = 1.72; 95% CI, 1.1-2.69) and worse asthma control (OR = 1.49; 95% CI, 1.05-2.11).
“This study expands the knowledge of the association of asthma and sleep-disordered breathing and asthma, particularly in vulnerable populations, and stresses the need to monitor this in high-risk children of minority racial and ethnic backgrounds,” Phipatanakul said. “We are working to further comprehensively understand modifiable risk factors for sleep, snoring and health outcomes in an ongoing study.”
For more information:
Wanda Phipatanakul, MD, MS, can be reached at Boston Children’s Hospital, 300 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115; email: wanda.phipatanakul@childrens.harvard.edu.