Study shows poor children face higher rates of asthma and ADHD [Post-Gazette.com]

Poverty takes a toll on human health and especially on children. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics and Britain’s Child Poverty Action Group, among various groups and scientific studies, long have documented the higher risk of illness, chronic disease and disability among impoverished children, along with lower birth weights and an average life expectancy nearly a decade shorter than children from affluent families.

Now add asthma and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder to the long list of physical and mental maladies, along with attendant conditions known as “comorbidities.”

These are the key findings of a Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC study published today in Pediatrics.  

As it turns out, asthma has risen by 18 percent, ADHD by 44 percent and autism spectrum disorders by 400 percent from 2003 through 2011-12 for all children, with debate about whether they reflect more actual cases or better health care and diagnoses. 

But the rise in lifetime prevalence of asthma “was most prominent among poor children,” the study found, with a 26 percent higher rate compared with affluent children, and a 58 percent higher rate among uninsured children. 

[For more of this story, written by David Templeton, go to http://www.post-gazette.com/ne...stories/201702130002]