This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
School calendar year impacts rate of asthma hospitalization
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The rate of asthma hospitalization in children may be related to factors such as the school calendar year and common cold viruses, which also may impact the asthma hospitalization rate in adults, according to recent research.
“Through explicit modeling of respiratory virus circulation and comparison of model components, we found that the prevalence of respiratory infections explained asthma hospitalization patterns much better than the academic calendar alone,” Lauren A. Meyers, PhD, professor of integrative biology and statistics and data sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, and colleagues wrote. “Our study combines both infectious and noninfectious drivers of asthma exacerbation; this two-tiered modeling strategy — coupling an asthma regression model with a respiratory virus transmission model — allowed us to simultaneously infer predictors of asthma hospitalization rates and epidemiological characteristics of the viruses that trigger asthma exacerbations.”
Lauren A. Meyers
To evaluate the impact of common cold infections on asthma exacerbation, Meyers and colleagues combined a common cold transmission model and a model of biological and environmental exacerbation triggers. They compared them with 7 years’ worth of asthma hospitalizations across eight metropolitan areas.
They found that, of 66,000 total events in adults and children, daily viral prevalence was the largest predictor of asthma hospitalizations and noted that school closures for vacation reduced the transmission rate by 45.1% (95% credible interval, 41%-49%). There was a nonspecific, transient period of immunity between infections for a mean of 19 days.
The researchers also reported that adults have more variable hospitalization events, but found a correlation between the influenza season and an uptick in wintertime events. Meyers and colleagues noted that factors such as ozone and particulate matter did not impact asthma hospitalization.
“This work can improve public health strategies to keep asthmatic children healthy. For example, at the riskiest times of year, doctors could encourage patient adherence to preventive medications, and schools could take measures to reduce cold transmission,” Meyers said in a press release. “The school calendar predicts common cold transmission, and the common cold predicts asthma exacerbations — and this study provides a quantitative relationship between those things.” – by Jeff Craven
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts