Rosas-Salazar C, Han YY, Brehm JM, Forno E, Acosta-Pérez E, Cloutier MM, Alvarez M, Colón-Semidey A, Canino G, Celedon JC. Chest 2016; 149(6): 1436-1444.
Affiliation
Division of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine, Allergy, and Immunology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. Electronic address: juan.celedon@chp.edu.
BACKGROUND: Exposure to gun violence and African ancestry have been separately associated with increased risk of asthma in Puerto Rican children.
OBJECTIVE: To examine whether African ancestry and gun violence interact on asthma and total IgE in school-aged Puerto Rican children.
METHODS: Case-control study of 747 Puerto Rican children aged 9 to 14 years living in San Juan, Puerto Rico (n=472), and Hartford, Connecticut (n=275). Exposure to gun violence was defined as the child's report of hearing gunshots more than once, and the percentage of African ancestry was estimated using genome-wide genotypic data. Asthma was defined as parental report of physician-diagnosed asthma and wheeze in the previous year. Serum total IgE (IU/mL) was measured in study participants. Multivariate logistic and linear regression were used for the analysis of asthma and total IgE, respectively.
RESULTS: In multivariate analyses, there was a significant interaction between exposure to gun violence and African ancestry on asthma (P=0.001) and serum total IgE (P=0.04). Among children exposed to gun violence, each quartile increase in the percentage of African ancestry was associated with ∼45% higher odds of asthma (95% CI=1.15-1.84, P=0.002) and a ∼19% increment in total IgE (95% CI= 0.60-40.65, P=0.04). In contrast, there was no significant association between African ancestry and asthma or total IgE in children not exposed to gun violence.
CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that exposure to gun violence modifies the estimated effect of African ancestry on asthma and atopy in Puerto Rican children.