Associations of acculturation and country of birth with asthma and wheezing in Mexican American youths.
BACKGROUND
Mexican Americans have lower rates of asthma than other ethnic groups in the United States.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the relationship between country of birth and acculturation with asthma and wheezing among Mexican American youths.


METHODS
We used Chi-squared statistics and logistic regression analyses to determine the associations of country of birth and acculturation with asthma and wheezing among 1,770 Mexican Americans age 12-19 years who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2002.


RESULTS
Mexican American adolescents born in the United States and those with high acculturation levels reported significantly higher prevalence rates of asthma, wheezing, and hay fever than their peers with low acculturation levels and born in Mexico. In multivariate analyses, youths with a high acculturation level had a higher risk of asthma than those with a low acculturation level independent of country of birth. Highly acculturated youths born in the US had a higher risk for wheezing compared with less acculturated US-born or Mexico-born participants after adjusting for confounding variables. In contrast, associations of asthma and wheezing with country of birth were not significant after controlling for acculturation. CONCLUSIONS. Our findings showed that both acculturation and country of birth were linked with the risk of asthma and wheezing, with acculturation having stronger effects than country of birth, among Mexican American youths. These findings may imply that factors modified by immigration and acculturation could influence the risk of asthma and wheezing. Identification of such factors could help in the design of asthma prevention programs.
Eldeirawi
Kamal M
KM
Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60612-7260, USA. keldei1@uic.edu
Persky
Victoria W
VW
D000069:Acculturation; D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D017058:Mexican Americans / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence; D011336:Probability; D012129:Respiratory Function Tests; D012135:Respiratory Sounds / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology