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Epidemiology of childhood asthma in mainland China (1988-2014): A meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:After the promotion of the two-child policy in recent years, the population of children in mainland China was bound to have a rapid growth, which would bring great challenges to public health. A number of cross-sectional studies on the epidemic of childhood asthma in mainland China were recently conducted, and varied prevalences were reported. Thus, knowing the epidemiology of childhood asthma in mainland China is of great necessity. OBJECTIVE:Our study aimed to summarize the pooled prevalence of childhood asthma in mainland China and its time trend, gender difference, regional distribution, and age structure. METHODS:Studies that reported the prevalence of childhood asthma in mainland China were identified via a systematic data base search through July 1, 2016. Meta-analysis was used to estimate the prevalence of childhood asthma and its subgroups, including gender, age groups, years, and regions. The regional distribution of the prevalence was set by province with the help of a geographic mapping software. The autoregressive integrated moving average model was used to predict the current prevalence of asthma. RESULTS:A total of 117 studies published from 1988 to 2014 in mainland China with a total sample size of 2,678,696 were included. The overall current prevalence and lifetime prevalence of childhood asthma was 2.112% (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.977-2.247%) and 2.502% (95% CI, 2.166-2.838%), respectively. The difference of the prevalences between male and female patients was significant: odds ratio 1.54 (95% CI, 1.47-1.62) for the current prevalence and odds ratio 1.61 (95% CI, 1.47-1.77) for the lifetime prevalence. CONCLUSION:The prevalence of childhood asthma in mainland China was low but has been increasing remarkably since 1998. Boys are more likely to have asthma throughout most of their childhood. Preschoolers (3-6 years old) showed a higher prevalence than the other age groups. The current prevalence of childhood asthma probably increased slightly from 2017 to 2019.

SUBMITTER: Guo X

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5911512 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundIn China, childhood asthma prevalence showed a remarkable increase in the past decades. An updated epidemiological assessment of childhood asthma in China with a focus on prevalence and time trends is required.MethodsWe systematically searched three main Chinese databases and one English database to identify epidemiological studies of the prevalence of childhood asthma in China. Asthma cases were defined according to one of the five sets of Chinese diagnostic criteria which were established by the Children Respiratory Disease Group. We estimated age- and sex-specific prevalence of asthma using a multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression. We presented the time trends of asthma prevalence between 1990 and 2020 by age, sex and setting (urban vs rural), and also estimated the number of children affected by asthma in 2010.ResultsIn 1990, the prevalence of asthma ranged from 0.13% (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.10-0.20) in rural girls aged 14 years to 1.34% (95% CI = 1.11-1.67) in urban boys aged five years. In 2010, the overall prevalence of asthma in Chinese children aged 0-14 years was 2.12% (95% CI = 1.83-2.51), corresponding to 5.16 million children living with asthma. Children aged 5-9 years were with the highest prevalence estimate of 2.65% (95% CI = 2.31-3.12) and those aged 10-14 years were with the lowest (1.48%, 95% CI = 1.26-1.78). In 2020, it is expected that this disparity will continue, with the prevalence of asthma being at the lowest level among rural girls aged 14 years (1.11%, 95% CI = 0.82-1.54) and at the highest level among urban boys aged four years (10.27%, 95% CI = 8.61-12.18). Over the 30 years (1990-2020), the prevalence of asthma in children aged 0-14 years has increased in both sexes and settings, which was consistently the lowest in rural girls and the highest in urban boys.ConclusionsThis study shows that childhood asthma has been increasingly prevalent in China. Asthma is more frequent in boys and in rural areas. The detailed and systematic estimates of asthma prevalence in this study constitute the best currently available basis for policymaking, planning, and allocation of health and welfare resources related to the burden of childhood asthma in China.

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Epidemiology of childhood asthma in mainland China (1988-2014): A meta-analysis.

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