Atopic dermatitis and skin diseaseDoes eczema in infancy cause hay fever, asthma, or both in childhood? Insights from a novel regression model of sibling data
Section snippets
Tasmania Longitudinal Health Study
The Tasmania Longitudinal Health Study (TAHS)4, 8, 9 commenced in 1968 when the parents of all Tasmanian schoolchildren (probands) born in 1961 were approached for a research study, the Tasmanian Asthma Study, a collaborative project involving the Asthma Foundation (as it was known then), Tasmanian School Medical Service staff, and researchers from the Universities of Queensland and New South Wales. Parents completed respiratory questionnaires for 8,583 probands (99%) and 21,043 of their
Results
Table I shows the characteristics of the paired siblings as individuals. It also shows that, within an individual, all 3 childhood conditions were associated with infantile eczema in decreasing order of strength from having hay fever and asthma, having asthma only, to having hay fever only. All conditions were also associated with having a parental history of the same condition. Having childhood asthma, with or without having a history of childhood hay fever, was more common in boys. After
Discussion
The most important finding of our study was that the relationships between eczema in infancy and having asthma with or without hay fever up to age 7 years seem to have different causes, as evident by Fig 1. Our data are consistent with the following scenarios. Eczema in infancy causes a substantial proportion, perhaps about 30%, of hay fever in children with a history of asthma and perhaps about 10% of hay fever in children without asthma in childhood. The approximate CIs based on bootstrapping
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This study was conducted under the auspices of the Tasmanian Asthma Foundation, which is funded by the Department of Health Services and run by the school medical officers and school health nurses. Data entry of the 1968 baseline study was supported by the Victorian Asthma Foundation. M.C.M., A.J.L., L.C.G., S.C.D., and J.L.H. are currently supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council as a Career Development Award (CDA) Fellow, Post-doctoral Fellow, CDA Fellow, Senior Research Fellow, and Australia Fellow, respectively.
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: M. J. Abramson has received research support from Pfizer. The rest of the authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest.