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Family structure and the treatment of childhood asthma
1Division of Research on Children, Youth, and Families, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, University of Southern California Keck, School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California, USA. achen@chla.usc.edu
Insights
Family structure impacts pediatric asthma care. Children in single-mother homes or with many siblings receive less asthma treatment, leading to poorer health outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Health Outcomes
- Family Structure Research
- Asthma Management
Background:
- Family structure influences child development and healthcare access.
- Previous research has not examined family structure's impact on specific pediatric conditions.
- This study investigates the link between family structure and asthma care.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess how family structure affects asthma treatment and outcomes in children.
- To identify specific family characteristics associated with variations in asthma care.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH).
- Analyzed data from children aged 2-17 with asthma in single-mother or two-parent households.
- Employed regression models to assess the impact of parental number and sibling number on asthma visits, medication use, and symptom severity, adjusting for covariates.
Main Results:
- Children in single-mother families had fewer asthma office visits and controller medication prescriptions.
- Increased sibling numbers correlated with fewer office visits and less medication use for asthma.
- Children in single-mother families reported more asthma-related health difficulties.
- More siblings were associated with a higher likelihood of asthma attacks in the past year.
Conclusions:
- Single-mother households and larger numbers of children are linked to reduced asthma treatment.
- These family structures are associated with more severe asthma symptoms and poorer health outcomes for children.
- Findings highlight disparities in pediatric asthma care based on family structure.
Background:
Family structure is known to influence children's behavioral, educational, and cognitive outcomes, and recent studies suggest that family structure affects children's access to health care as well. However, no study has addressed whether family structure is associated with the care children receive for particular conditions or with their physical health outcomes.
Objective:
To assess the effects of family structure on the treatment and outcomes of children with asthma.
Methods:
Our data sources were the 1996-2003 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH). The study samples consisted of children 2-17 years of age with asthma who lived in single-mother or 2-parent families. We assessed the effect of number of parents and number of other children in the household on office visits for asthma and use of asthma medications using negative binomial regression, and we assessed the effect of family structure on the severity of asthma symptoms using binary and ordinal logistic regression. Our regression models adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, parental experience in child-rearing and in caring for an asthmatic child and, when appropriate, measures of children's health status.
Results:
Asthmatic children in single-mother families had fewer office visits for asthma and filled fewer prescriptions for controller medications than children with 2 parents. In addition, children living in families with 3 or more other children had fewer office visits and filled fewer prescriptions for reliever and controller medications than children living with no other children. Children from single-mother families had more health difficulties from asthma than children with 2 parents, and children living with 2 or more other children were more likely to have an asthma attack in the past 12 months than children living with no other children.
Conclusions:
For children with asthma, living with a single mother and the presence of additional children in the household are associated with less treatment for asthma and worse asthma outcomes.
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