Andy's Article 2

[Header] Newacheck PW, Halfon N. Prevalence, impact, and trends in childhood disability due to asthma. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2000;154:287-293.


Newacheck and Halfon claim that asthma is the single most prevalent cause of childhood disability and that it has contributed to a substantial rise in the overall prevalence of disability in children during the past 25 years. They studied a cross-sectional analysis of 62,171 children and also data from 4 decades of National Health Interview Surveys.

These researchers found significantly higher rates of disability due to asthma for adolescents, black children, males, and children from low-income and single parent families. They also found that the prevalence of disabling asthma has increased 232% since 1969. This is approximately twice the increase of disability due to all other childhood chronic conditions.

Newacheck and Haflon suggest that this increase may be due to differences in data collection methods, distribution of underlying risk factors, or changes in host resistance.

[Remarks and Andy’s opinion. It does indeed appear that Asthma disability is growing at a disproportionately high rate [as defined by Newacheck and Halfon and the NHIS]. However, there is some strange operational definition of Asthma disability that contains general activity levels (e.g., playing outside) that may reflect general trends in activity or may be confounded. “Limited activity…” Authors conceded that this may be due to data collection methods, distribution of underlying risk factors, or even changes in host resistance. ]