Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Aug;152(2):378-385.e2.
doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2023.03.018. Epub 2023 Mar 28.

Neighborhood environmental vulnerability and pediatric asthma morbidity in US metropolitan areas

Sneha Kannoth  1 , Sarah E Chung  2 , Kelvin D Tamakloe  2 , Sandra S Albrecht  2 , Alexander Azan  3 , Earle C Chambers  4 , Perry E Sheffield  5 , Azure Thompson  6 , Jennifer A Woo Baidal  7 , Stephanie Lovinsky-Desir  7 , Jeanette A Stingone  2
Affiliations

Neighborhood environmental vulnerability and pediatric asthma morbidity in US metropolitan areas

Sneha Kannoth et al. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2023 Aug.

Abstract

Background: Research suggests demographic, economic, residential, and health-related factors influence vulnerability to environmental exposures. Greater environmental vulnerability may exacerbate environmentally related health outcomes. We developed a neighborhood environmental vulnerability index (NEVI) to operationalize environmental vulnerability on a neighborhood level.

Objective: We explored the relationship between NEVI and pediatric asthma emergency department (ED) visits (2014-19) in 3 US metropolitan areas: Los Angeles County, Calif; Fulton County, Ga; and New York City, NY.

Methods: We performed separate linear regression analyses examining the association between overall NEVI score and domain-specific NEVI scores (demographic, economic, residential, health status) with pediatric asthma ED visits (per 10,000) across each area.

Results: Linear regression analyses suggest that higher overall and domain-specific NEVI scores were associated with higher annual pediatric asthma ED visits. Adjusted R2 values suggest that overall NEVI scores explained at least 40% of the variance in pediatric asthma ED visits. Overall NEVI scores explained more of the variance in pediatric asthma ED visits in Fulton County. NEVI scores for the demographic, economic, and health status domains explained more of the variance in pediatric asthma ED visits in each area compared to the NEVI score for the residential domain.

Conclusion: Greater neighborhood environmental vulnerability was associated with greater pediatric asthma ED visits in each area. The relationship differed in effect size and variance explained across the areas. Future studies can use NEVI to identify populations in need of greater resources to mitigate the severity of environmentally related outcomes, such as pediatric asthma.

Keywords: Pediatric asthma; environmental vulnerability; neighborhood; racial disparities.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Heatmap of the Variance Explained (Adjusted R-Squared Values) Using the Linear Regression Models Examining the Relationship between NEVI and Pediatric Asthma ED Visits (per 10,000)1
1 Adjusted R-squared values are plotted by metropolitan area (Los Angeles County, Fulton County, New York City) on the x-axis and by the individual explanatory variable included in the linear regression model (e.g., overall NEVI score, type of domain-specific NEVI score) on the y-axis Acronyms: NEVI = Neighborhood Environmental Vulnerability Index; ED = emergency department
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ferrante G, La Grutta S. The Burden of Pediatric Asthma. Front Pediatr. 2018;6:186. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sennhauser FH, Braun-Fahrlander C, Wildhaber JH. The burden of asthma in children: a European perspective. Paediatr Respir Rev. 2005;6(1):2–7. - PubMed
    1. Castro-Rodriguez JA, Forno E. Asthma and COVID-19 in children: A systematic review and call for data. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2020;55(9):2412–8. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Perry R, Braileanu G, Palmer T, Stevens P. The Economic Burden of Pediatric Asthma in the United States: Literature Review of Current Evidence. Pharmacoeconomics. 2019;37(2):155–67. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Trivedi M, Denton E. Asthma in Children and Adults-What Are the Differences and What Can They Tell us About Asthma? Front Pediatr. 2019;7:256. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types