Figures show that the number of children having asthma is decreasing
(Mirror Daily, United States) – After a very long time of asthma cases increasing at worrying rates, finally the numbers of children with asthma decrease.
Asthma is one of the most infamous disorders in the world, especially since it affects children mostly, children who grow up having to struggle with breathing problems. In the last few decades the number of children with asthma grew so much it became alarming, doubling between 1980 and 1990.
Although an official reason for this increase doesn’t exist, it is believed that the main factors leading to the growing number of children with asthma are secondhand smoke, very poor functioning immune systems and obesity. Of course, all of these factors don’t exclusively lead to asthma as they can cause many other health problems as well, but asthma seems to develop more rapidly and affect more children.
The situation started changing in the new millennium according to researchers who have studied data from the Health Interview Survey between 2001 and 2013. It looks like in 2011, among children who were younger than 17 years old, 9.7 percent of them had asthma. Two years later, in 2013, among children from the same age spectrum, only 8.3 percent had asthma, which although doesn’t seem like much, it is actually a dramatic decline. The findings were published in the Pediatrics journal. Scientists hope that 2013 represents the start of the decline of this phenomenon.
However, what is still disquieting and hard to explain is the fact that African-American children are more affected by asthma than white children. There is a difference of 6 percent between the two groups with 8 percent among white children having asthma, while 14 percent of the black children are affected by the disorder.
Scientists don’t really have an explanation for it, although according to studies, children who come from families that struggle with financial difficulties are more likely to develop the disorder. Since a higher percentage of African-American people are having socio-economic trouble, this could indeed be one of the causes.
Although the figures still don’t look very well, with about 1 in 9 children having asthma and despite the fact that scientists don’t yet understand the reason of the decline, everyone hopes the decrease will continue and less and less children, both white and African-American will be healthier.
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