To think race does not matter, a new study has surprisingly revealed that asthma affects white kids less, especially in school.
Kids with asthma may struggle more in school when their symptoms aren’t well-controlled, and minority students with this breathing disorder are more likely to fall behind than their white counterparts.
For the study, researchers looked at asthma and allergies, lung function, school attendance, and academic performance for 182 Latino school children, 182 black students, and 81 white kids.
All of the kids were between 7 and 9 years old and students in one of four large urban public school districts.
They found that poorly controlled asthma appeared to have the worst impact on academic performance for Latino students, although black students also fared worse than white students with the breathing disorder.
This however was linked availability of prompt medical attention.
“We found associations between poor asthma status, poorer asthma control, lower lung function, more asthma symptoms, and decline in academic performance,” said lead study author Daphne Koinis-Mitchell of Bradley/Hasbro Children’s Research Center in Providence, Rhode Island.
“These associations were stronger in ethnic minority children, particularly Latino children,” Koinis-Mitchell said.
Compared to children with well-controlled asthma, students with more daily asthma symptoms missed more days of school, completed fewer assignments, and had lower quality work, researchers report in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
It also wasn’t designed to prove to what extent students’ racial or ethnic background might directly impact the connection between asthma and things like school attendance or grades.