title: Gender-specific determinants of asthma among U.S. adults.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Asthma, a chronic respiratory disease affecting over 18.7 million American adults, has marked disparities by gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Our goal was to identify gender-specific demographic and socioeconomic determinants of asthma prevalence among U.S. adults using data from the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
  
  
  METHODS
  Gender-specific regression analyses were performed to model the relationship between asthma prevalence with age, race/ethnicity, income, education level, smoking status, and body mass index (BMI), while taking into account the study designs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Based on BRFSS data from 1,003,894 respondents, weighted asthma prevalence was 6.2% in males and 10.6% in females. Asthma prevalence amonggrade 2 obeseandgrade 3 obesevs.not overweight or obesewomen was 2.5 and 3.5 times higher, respectively, while that in men was 1.7 and 2.4 times higher; asthma prevalence amongcurrentvs.never smokerwomen was 1.4 times higher, while that in men was 1.1 times higher. Similar results were obtained with NHANES data from 13,364 respondents: asthma prevalence amonggrade 2 obeseandgrade 3 obesevs.not overweight or obeserespondents was 2.0 and 3.3 times higher for women, though there was no significant difference for men; asthma prevalence amongcurrentvs.never smokerswas 1.8 times higher for women and not significantly different in men. Asthma prevalence by race/ethnicity and income levels did not differ considerably between men and women.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results underscore the importance of obesity and smoking as modifiable asthma risk factors that most strongly affect women.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, 219 Blockley Hall, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Greenblatt
authors.affiliation: Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 USA.
authors.forename: Omar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mansour
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, 219 Blockley Hall, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA.
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, 219 Blockley Hall, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ross
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, 219 Blockley Hall, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA.
authors.forename: Blanca E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Himes
keywords: Adult asthma; Asthma; Obesity; Smoking