Brown Research: Small Amounts of Pollen Triggers Kids’ Asthma

Email to a friend Permalink

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

GoLocal Health Team

Low-pollen days aren't safe for kids with asthma, says new research

Pollen has been a long-acknowledged enemy of the allergic community, but new research from Yale and Brown universities shows that children with asthma are particularly sensitive to even the smallest amount of pollen.

The study, published in the journal Epidemiology, showed that children with asthma were more likely to experience symptoms of wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath, even when pollen counts were considered "low."

The study followed more than 400 children with asthma, as well as the daily pollen levels near their homes, for five years. Despite daily maintenance medications, those kids with pollen sensitivities were 37% more likely to have the above symptoms when the pollen in the air was 6-9 grains per cubic meter--a level the National Allergy Bureau terms as low.

What it means for RI's children with asthma

This has real implications for Rhode Island's 27,000 children with asthma, says Elizabeth Triche, PhD, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Brown University's School of Medicine and a co-author of the study. According to Triche, very low level pollen concentrations were actually associated with increased symptoms, even among maintenance medication users. "This suggests that predicted climate changes, such as warmer temperatures and higher levels of carbon dioxide, could lead to a higher burden of symptoms among asthmatic children," she says.

Another strength of the study, says Triche, was an objective measure of allergy status in the children studied. "For nearly all symptoms, the effects of pollen on symptoms are much stronger for children who are sensitized to the allergen than among those who were not sensitized," she says."Knowing what allergens a child is allergic to can help parents limit exposures to those allergens."

The costs of asthma

Asthma takes a serious toll on Rhode Island's young population. The average length of a hospitalization stay for a child with asthma in RI is two days, with an average charge of $7,840. Further, children under age five have the highest humber of asthma hospitalization and the highest charges, compared with all other children--six times greater than those for adolescents 12-17 years of age.