Abstract
Few large epidemiological studies have examined the co-occurrence of autism and asthma. We performed a cross-sectional study to examine this association using the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health dataset (n = 77,951). We controlled for confounders and tested for autism-secondhand smoke interaction. Prevalence of asthma and autism were 14.5 % (n = 11,335) and 1.81 % (n = 1,412) respectively. Unadjusted odds ratio (OR) for asthma among autistic children was 1.35 (95 % CI 1.18–1.55). Adjusting for covariates (age, gender, body mass index, race, brain injury, secondhand smoke and socio-economic status) attenuated the OR to 1.19 (95 % CI 1.03–1.36). Autism-secondhand smoke interaction was insignificant (p = 0.38). Asthma is approximately 35 % more common in autistic children; screening may be an efficient approach to reduce risk of morbidity due to asthma.
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Kotey, S., Ertel, K. & Whitcomb, B. Co-occurrence of Autism and Asthma in a Nationally-Representative Sample of Children in the United States. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 3083–3088 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2174-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2174-y