Just over 20 percent of children born outside the U.S. had any type of allergic disease – including asthma, eczema, hay fever or food allergies – compared to between 34 and 35 percent of those born in the U.S.
[CHICAGO TRIBUNE]
Kids and teens who are born abroad and immigrate to the United States are about half as likely to have asthma and allergies as those who are born in the U.S., according to a new study.
Researchers surveyed the parents of 80,000 children in one of six languages and found that association held even after they took into account where families lived and how often they moved, as well as their race and income.
“This is definitely something we see clinically and we’re trying to better understand, what is it in our environment that’s increasing the risk of allergic disease?” said Dr. Ruchi Gupta, who studies allergies at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago but wasn’t involved in the new research.
Read more about how doctors are treating kids with asthma at the Chicago Tribune.