Tufts researchers and colleagues report that place of birth plays a role in the occurrence of asthma in a United States black population.
The researchers found that within one inner-city population, blacks born in the United States were more likely to have asthma than blacks who were born outside of the United States.
"Within Asian and Hispanic populations, there is research that indicates that asthma varies between those who are born in the U.S. and those who are foreign-born. There is currently no research that we found that describes asthma prevalence among black/African-American subpopulations in the U.S.," says first author Doug Brugge, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
In partnership with Tufts University School of Medicine, the Boston Urban Asthma Coalition (BUAC) implemented the project in Dorchester in response to parents who wanted to determine how asthma affects their community. Adults 18 years and older were recruited from various locations in Dorchester to participate in the oral survey. If the recruited adults had children, they answered asthma-related questions about their children. Parent leaders from BUAC and students from Harvard Medical School conducted the survey, which included questions from asthma screening questionnaires used and validated by other organizations and research studies. Questions included place of birth as well as questions related to occurrence of asthma symptoms (e.g., chest tightness, wheezing, family history of asthma, allergies, etc.) and environmental factors that would lead to asthma (e.g., maternal smoking during pregnancy, mold growth in the home, vehicle traffic near home, etc.)