Racial differences in pet ownership in families of children with asthma

Exposure to household domestic animals such as cats and dogs in early life may have some role in pathogenesis of asthma. Racial differences exist in the prevalence of asthma. We hypothesized that there may also be racial differences in pet ownership in families with asthma.

A cross sectional study was conducted from June 2011 to December 2014 on 823 of 850 (97%) families of children with asthma for pet ownership. Comparisons among racial groups were done using chi square analysis and one-way analysis of variance.

The mean age of the cohort was 6.9±4.4 years. A total of 540 (65.62%) patients were Caucasian, 195 (23.7%) African American, 42 (5.1%) hispanics, and 26 (3.2%) biracial with one Caucasian parent. Pets in the home were reported by 470 (58.5%) households. Significantly fewer African American and hispanic families had pets in the home (26.9% and 44.7%) than biracial and Caucasian families (72% and 69.9%, P<0.001). Likewise, significantly more biracial and Caucasian families were noted to have dogs (52% and 54.4%) or cats (25.4% and 40%) or both cats and dogs (28% and 18%) than African Americans families (20.3%, P<0.001; 7.1%, P<0.001) and (4.6%, P<0.001), respectively.

Among families with asthmatic children, pet ownership is significantly more likely in Caucasian families compared with African-American and Hispanic families, thus there is a racial diversity in pet ownership among families of children with asthma.