title: Impact of asthma on educational attainment in a socioeconomically deprived population: a study linking health, education and social care datasets.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Asthma has the potential to adversely affect children's school examination performance, and hence longer term life chances. Asthma morbidity is especially high amongst UK ethnic minority children and those experiencing social adversity, populations which also have poor educational outcomes. We tested the hypothesis that asthma adversely affects performance in national school examinations in a large cohort from an area of ethnic diversity and social deprivation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  With a novel method (using patient and address-matching algorithms) we linked administrative and clinical data for 2002-2005 for children in east London aged 5-14 years to contemporaneous education and social care datasets. We modelled children's performance in school examinations in relation to socio-demographic and clinical variables. The dataset captured examination performance for 12,136 children who sat at least one national examination at Key Stages 1-3. For illustration, estimates are presented as percentage changes in Key Stage 2 results. Having asthma was associated with a 1.1% increase in examination scores (95%CI 0.4 to 1.7)%,p = 0.02. Worse scores were associated with Bangladeshi ethnicity -1.3%(-2.5 to -0.1)%,p = 0.03; special educational need -14.6%(-15.7 to -13.5)%,p = 0.02; mental health problems -2.5%(-4.1 to -0.9)%,p = 0.003, and social adversity: living in a smoking household -1.2(-1.7 to -0.6)%,p<0.001; living in social housing -0.8%(-1.3 to -0.2)% p = 0.01, and entitlement to free school meals -0.8%(-1.5 to -0.1)%,p<0.001.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Social adversity and ethnicity, but not asthma, are associated with poorer performance in national school examinations. Policies to improve educational attainment in socially deprived areas should focus on these factors.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Blizard Institute, Barts and The London Medical School, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Pat
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sturdy
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bremner
authors.forename: Gill
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Harper
authors.forename: Les
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mayhew
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Eldridge
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eversley
authors.forename: Aziz
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sheikh
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.forename: Kambiz
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Boomla
authors.forename: Gene
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Feder
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Prescott
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Griffiths
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000465:Algorithms; D001249:Asthma; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D008297:Male; D008913:Minority Groups; D011203:Poverty; D012574:Schools; D012923:Social Class; D035862:Vulnerable Populations