There is conflicting information about the relationship between asthma and socioeconomic status, with different studies reporting no, positive, or inverse associations. Most of these studies have been cross sectional in design and have relied on subjective markers of asthma such as symptoms of wheeze. Many have been unable to control adequately for potential confounding factors.
We report a prospective cohort study of approximately 1000 individuals born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1972-3. This sample has been assessed regularly throughout childhood and into adulthood, with detailed information collected on asthma symptoms, lung function, airway responsiveness, and atopy. The prevalence of these in relation to measures of socioeconomic status were analysed with and without controls for potential confounding influences including parental history of asthma, smoking, breast feeding, and birth order using cross sectional time series models.
No consistent association was found between childhood or adult socioeconomic status and asthma prevalence, lung function, or airway responsiveness at any age. Having asthma made no difference to educational attainment or socioeconomic status by age 26. There were trends to increased atopy in children from higher socioeconomic status families consistent with previous reports.
Socioeconomic status in childhood had no significant impact on the prevalence of asthma in this New Zealand born cohort. Generalisation of these results to other societies should be done with caution, but our results suggest that the previously reported associations may be due to confounding.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 October 2017.
All research outputs
#7,022,598
of 32,572,863 outputs
Outputs from Thorax
#2,910
of 7,153 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#17,541
of 82,461 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Thorax
#16
of 39 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,572,863 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 74th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,153 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 82,461 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 39 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 43rd percentile – i.e., 43% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
