The Age, Sex, and Geographical Distribution of Self-Reported Asthma Triggers on Children With Asthma in China

Abstract

Background: Asthma can be exacerbated by many triggers, and the heterogeneity of asthma triggers is clear among children with asthma. This study describes asthma triggers using a large-scale electronic dataset from the smartphone-based Chinese Children's Asthma Action Plan (CCAAP) app and aims to examine the difference in asthma triggers among different subgroups of children with asthma.Methods: Data from the smartphone-based CCAAP app between February 22, 2017, and November 23, 2020, were reviewed, and children with asthma who reported their asthma triggers were enrolled. Eight common asthma triggers were listed in the software: upper respiratory infection (URI), allergen sensitization, exercise, emotional disturbances, pungent odors, air pollution/smog, weather change, and tobacco smoke. We compared the incidence of asthma triggers among different subgroups (<6 years vs. 6–17 years; boy vs. girl; eastern region vs. central region vs. western region).Results: We enrolled 6,835 patients with self-reported asthma triggers. When compared by sex, boys had a higher proportion of exercise-triggered asthma than girls (boys vs. girls, 22.5 vs. 19.7%, p < 0.05). The proportion of patients <6 years of age with URI-triggered asthma was higher than that of patients 6–17 years of age (<6 vs. 6–17 years, 80.9 vs. 74.9%, p < 0.001). Patients 6–17 years of age were more likely than patients <6 years of age to report five of the asthma triggers: allergen sensitization (<6 vs. 6–17 years, 26.6 vs. 35.8%, p < 0.001), exercise (<6 vs. 6–17 years, 19.3 vs. 23.7%, p < 0.001), pungent odors (<6 vs. 6–17 years, 8.8 vs. 12.7%, p < 0.001), air pollution/smog (<6 vs. 6–17 years, 9.4 vs. 16.2%, p < 0.001), and tobacco smoke (<6 vs. 6–17 years, 3.5 vs. 5.3%, p < 0.001). In subgroups based on geographical distribution, asthma triggering of allergen sensitization was reported to be the most common in patients from the eastern region (eastern region vs. central region vs. western region, 35.0 vs. 24.6 vs. 28.0%, p < 0.001). Exercise-triggered asthma was found to be the most prevalent among patients from the central region (eastern region vs. central region vs. western region, 21.6 vs. 24.8 vs. 20.4%, p < 0.05). However, the proportion of patients with air pollution/smog as an asthma trigger was the lowest among those from the western region (eastern region vs. central region vs. western region, 14.1 vs. 14.1 vs. 10.8%, p < 0.05).Conclusion: Children with asthma present different types of asthma triggers, both allergenic and nonallergenic. Age, sex, and geographical distribution affect specific asthma triggers. Preventive measures can be implemented based on a patient's specific asthma trigger.

Factors Associated With Lower Respiratory Tract Infection Among Chinese Students Aged 6–14 Years

“…Thirdly, in this survey, data were collected via parents-reported electronic questionnaires, which might yield risk for recall or reporting bias, although strict quality control was implemented. Additionally, items analyzed are more general, and some transient factors such as quick weather change from warm to cold and severe air pollution that were found to be susceptible to respiratory infection ( 38 , 39 ) are not collected in this survey. We agree that further incorporation of more factors is necessary to improve model precision and recall, which are relatively low, even under the optimal gNB algorithm.…”

Effects of portable pedal machines at work on lipoprotein subfraction profile in sedentary workers – the REMOVE study

“…The absence of male participants was also a factor precluding generalisability of our results, but it was also a factor limiting putative sex bias -as the lipoprotein subfraction profile is influenced by sex. Some variables were not measured in our intervention study, such as deeper biomolecular pathways that could have explained the observed changes in lipoprotein profile [63,64].…”