Social, Environmental and Behavioral Determinants of Asthma Symptoms in Brazilian Middle School Students—A National School Health Survey (Pense 2012)

Rita C. Ribeiro-Silva, Deborah C. Malta, Laura C. Rodrigues, Dandara O. Ramos, Rosemeire L. Fiaccone, Daiane B. Machado and Maurício L. Barreto
Additional contact information
Rita C. Ribeiro-Silva: School of Nutrition, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador 40.110-150, Brazil
Deborah C. Malta: School of Nursery, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 30.130-100, Brazil
Laura C. Rodrigues: Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK
Dandara O. Ramos: Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS), Institute Gonçalo Moniz (IGM), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Salvador 41.745-715, Brazil
Rosemeire L. Fiaccone: Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador 40.170-110, Brazil
Daiane B. Machado: Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS), Institute Gonçalo Moniz (IGM), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Salvador 41.745-715, Brazil
Maurício L. Barreto: Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health (CIDACS), Institute Gonçalo Moniz (IGM), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), Salvador 41.745-715, Brazil

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: Biological and psychosocial factors are recognized contributors to the worldwide burden of asthma. However, the relationship between psychosocial factors and asthma symptoms among students in low- and middle-income countries remains underexplored. We aimed to identify socioeconomic, environmental, psychosocial, family-related and lifestyle factors associated with the self-reporting of asthma symptoms in Brazilian adolescents. This is a cross-sectional study using data from the 2012 PeNSE survey ( n = 109,104). We analyzed the following variables: socioeconomic conditions, demographic characteristics, lifestyle, family context and dynamics, psychosocial indicators, smoking, and exposure to violence. Our outcome variable was the self-report of asthma symptoms in the past 12 months. The prevalence of wheezing was 22.7% (21.5–23.9). After adjusting for sex, age and the variables from higher hierarchical levels, exposure to violence (feeling unsafe at school, being frequently bullied, being exposed to fights with firearms) and physical aggression by an adult in the family were the environmental factors that showed the strongest associations with self-reporting of asthma symptoms. For psychosocial indicators of mental health and social integration, feelings of loneliness and sleeping problems were the strongest factors, and among individual behavioral factors, the largest associations were found for tobacco consumption. Our findings were consistent with previous studies, showing an association between self-reported asthma symptoms and socio-economic status, family context and dynamics, psychosocial indicators of mental health, exposure to violence and social integration, as well as a sedentary lifestyle and tobacco use.

Keywords: wheezing; schoolchildren; psychosocial indicators; violence; lifestyle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2904/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2904/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:12:p:2904-:d:191570

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().