Author(s): Fattore, Gisel Lorena ; Santos, Carlos Antonio de Souza Teles ; Barreto, Mauricio Lima ; Fattore, Gisel Lorena ; Santos, Carlos Antonio de Souza Teles ; Barreto, Mauricio Lima
Date: 2015
Origin: Oasisbr
Subject(s): Asthma; Social Inequalities; Urban; Children
Submitted by Maria Creuza Silva (mariakreuza@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-06-15T15:07:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Barreto ML. 2014 et al.pdf: 659151 bytes, checksum: bcde5b86cd78d218e638164c0c4fd051 (MD5)
Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-15T15:07:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Barreto ML. 2014 et al.pdf: 659151 bytes, checksum: bcde5b86cd78d218e638164c0c4fd051 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014
Asthma is an important public health problem in urban Latin America. This study aimed to analyze the role of socioeconomic and environmental factors as potential determinants of asthma symptoms prevalence in children from Latin American (LA) urban centers. We selected 31 LA urban centers with complete data, and an ecological analysis was performed. According to our theoretical framework, the explanatory variables were classified in three levels: distal, intermediate, and proximate. The association between variables in the three levels and prevalence of asthma symptoms was examined by bivariate and multivariate linear regression analysis weighed by sample size. In a second stage, we fitted several linear regression models introducing sequentially the variables according to the predefined hierarchy. In the final hierarchical model Gini Index, crowding, sanitation, variation in infant mortality rates and homicide rates, explained great part of the variance in asthma prevalence between centers (R(2) = 75.0 %). We found a strong association between socioeconomic and environmental variables and prevalence of asthma symptoms in LA urban children, and according to our hierarchical framework and the results found we suggest that social inequalities (measured by the Gini Index) is a central determinant to explain high prevalence of asthma in LA.
New York
