Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Original article
Urbanisation but not biomass fuel smoke exposure is associated with asthma prevalence in four resource-limited settings
  1. Chelsea Gaviola1,
  2. Catherine H Miele1,
  3. Robert A Wise1,
  4. Robert H Gilman2,
  5. Devan Jaganath1,
  6. J Jaime Miranda3,4,
  7. Antonio Bernabe-Ortiz3,4,
  8. Nadia N Hansel1,
  9. William Checkley1,2
  10. CRONICAS Cohort Study Group
    1. 1Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
    2. 2Program in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control, Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
    3. 3CRONICAS Center of Excellence in Chronic Diseases, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru
    4. 4Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru
    1. Correspondence to Dr William Checkley, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, 1800 Orleans Ave Suite 9121, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA; wcheckl1{at}jhmi.edu

    Abstract

    Background Urbanisation is an important contributor to the prevalence of asthma worldwide, and the burden of this effect in low-income and middle-income countries undergoing rapid industrialisation appears to be growing. We sought to characterise adult asthma prevalence across four geographically diverse settings in Peru and identify both individual and environmental risk factors associated with adult asthma.

    Methods We collected sociodemographics, clinical history and spirometry in adults aged ≥35 years. We defined asthma as meeting one of the three criteria: physician diagnosis, self-report of wheezing attack or use of asthma medications. We used multivariable logistic regression to assess individual and environmental factors associated with adult asthma.

    Results We analysed data from 2953 participants (mean age 55 years; 49% male). Overall asthma prevalence was 7.1%, which varied with urbanisation: highest in Lima (14.5%), followed by urban Puno (4.0%), semiurban Tumbes (3.8%) and rural Puno (1.8%). In multivariable analysis, being male (OR=0.60, 95% CI 0.39 to 0.93) and living at high altitude (OR=0.26, 95% CI 0.16 to 0.42) were associated with lower odds of having asthma, whereas living in an urban setting (OR=4.72, 95% CI 3.15 to 7.23) and family history of asthma (OR=1.83, 95% CI 1.19 to 2.73) were associated with higher odds. Current daily exposure to biomass fuel smoke (OR=1.18, 95% CI 0.70 to 1.91) and smoking (OR=0.99, 95% CI 0.73 to 1.22) were not associated with asthma.

    Conclusions These findings confirm that urbanisation is an environmental risk factor of asthma, questions biomass fuel smoke exposure as an important risk factor and proposes high altitude as possibly protective against the development of asthma.

    • Asthma
    • Asthma Epidemiology

    Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.