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Abstract
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RATIONALE: Intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment have been separately associated with asthma in adults. No study has concurrently examined adulthood adverse events (including but not limited to IPV), child maltreatment, and asthma in adults.
OBJECTIVE: To concurrently examine adulthood adverse events, child maltreatment and asthma in adults.
METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of adulthood adverse events, child maltreatment, and current asthma in 87,891 adults 40-69 years who participated in the UK Biobank. Adulthood adverse events were assessed using questions adapted from a national crime survey. Child maltreatment. was ascertained using the Childhood Trauma Screener questionnaire. Current asthma was defined as physician-diagnosed asthma and current wheeze, and further classified as non-eosinophilic or eosinophilic according to eosinophil count (<300 vs. ≥ 300 cells/µL).
RESULTS: In a multivariable analysis, participants who reported ≥2 types of adulthood adverse events had 1.19-1.45 times significantly higher odds of asthma than those who did not, while participants who reported ≥2 types of child maltreatment had 1.25-1.59 significantly higher odds of asthma than those reporting no child maltreatment. After stratification by sex, similar results were obtained for child maltreatment in women and men, while adulthood adverse events were only significantly associated with asthma in women. Similar findings were observed in analyses restricted to never smokers and former smokers with <10 pack-years of smoking, and in analyses of non-eosinophilic and eosinophilic asthma.
CONCLUSION: In a cohort of British adults, child maltreatment was associated with current asthma in men and in women, while adulthood adverse events were associated with current asthma in women only. This was independent of cigarette smoking or eosinophil count.
Language: en |