[Prevalence of self-reported allergy, food hypersensitivity and food intolerance and their influencing factors in 0-36 months old infants in 8 cities in China].
OBJECTIVE
To measure the prevalence, the possible causes and the influencing factors of allergy, food hypersensitivity and food intolerance in 0-36 month old infants in 8 cities in China.


METHODS
Totally 2632 infants from the outpatient departments of prevention and health care of two representative hospitals in 8 Chinese cities were randomly selected by applying multistage cluster sampling method from October 2011 to March 2012, and a one-on-one survey to infants' parents was conducted to investigate infants' sensitization status.


RESULTS
Self-reported infant allergy rate was 17.97% (473/2632) ; self-reported food hypersensitivity and food intolerance rates were 6.53% (172/2632) and 4.26% (112/2632) , respectively. The proportion of self-reported food hypersensitivity of 0-12 months old infants was 4.47% (74/1656) and their top five allergens in a descending order were eggs (28.38%) , shrimp (25.68%) , fish (21.62%) , milk (18.92%) and wheat (4.05%) . The proportion of self-reported 13-36 months old infant's food hypersensitivity was 10.05% (98/976) . The top five allergens were shrimp (33.93%) , fish (26.79%) , eggs (23.21%) , milk (12.50%) and soy (3.57%) in 13-24 months group, while fish (38.24%) , shrimp (35.29%) , eggs (20.59%) , milk (20.59%) and peanuts (2.94%) in 25-36 months group. Both 7-12 and 13-24 month old were the highest incidence (both of them were 11.98%, 58/484) of age for developing food hypersensitivity and 7-12-month old was also the highest incidence (8.47%, 41/484) of age for food intolerance. The self-reported food intolerance rate was 3.68% (61/1656) and 5.23% (51/976) in the two age groups, respectively. Age, parental history of allergy and father's educational level (OR was 2.452, 1.482 and 2.598, respectively, P < 0.01) were the risk factors of food hypersensitivity; within two weeks of sickness (OR = 1.267, P < 0.05) was the risk factor of food intolerance.


CONCLUSIONS
Infancy was the most vulnerable period of life of getting allergy, therefore, it is necessary for all infants to prevent allergy through a variety of effective strategies.
School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
Fang-li
FL
Liu
Yi-bing
YB
Ning
De-fu
DF
Ma
Ying-dong
YD
Zheng
Xiao-guang
XG
Yang
Wen-jun
WJ
Li
Email: zhangyumei@bjmu.edu.cn.
Yu-mei
YM
Zhang
Pei-yu
PY
Wang
D017677:Age Distribution; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D004044:Dietary Proteins / Q000009:adverse effects; D021181:Egg Hypersensitivity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D004531:Eggs / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007225:Infant Food / Q000009:adverse effects; D041943:Infant Formula; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D016269:Milk Hypersensitivity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D012307:Risk Factors; D012494:Sampling Studies; D017678:Sex Distribution; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D004044:Dietary Proteins