Residential Proximity to Freeways is Associated with Uncontrolled Asthma in Inner-City Hispanic Children and Adolescents

Table 2

Influence of distance from freeway and patient characteristics on asthma control during year one participation in Breathmobile program, stratified by baseline asthma severity. OR: odds ratio.

	OR = Likelihood patient’s asthma “not well controlled” during year 1 comparing patients in respective to reference category (—)
	Intermittent-mild asthma N = 352		Moderate-Severe Asthma N = 404
	% Asthma not well controlled	Unadjusted OR (95%CI)	% Asthma not well controlled	Unadjusted OR (95%CI)
Overall	39%	—	54%	1.8 (1.4,2.4)
Distance from freeway:
<2 miles	41%	2.2 (1.1,4.7)†	55%	1.2 (0.7,2.0)
≥2 miles	24%	—	50%	—
Potential confounding factors:
# Freeways
Less than two freeways	38%	—	54%	—
Two or more freeways	43%	1.2 (0.8,2.0)	54%	1.0 (0.7,1.6)
Age (years)
3–5 years	44%	1.3 (0.8,2.2)	49%	0.8 (0.5,1.3)
≥6 years	38%	—	55%	—
Gender:
Female	39%	1.0 (0.7,1.6)	53%	1.0 (0.7,1.5)
Male	39%	—	54%	—
Baseline morbidity (past yr):
Asthma Attacks:
Less than two	40%	—	55%	—
Two or more	26%	0.5 (0.2,1.1)	49%	0.8 (0.5,1.3)
ED visits:
None	39%	—	55%	—
One or more	41%	1.1 (0.6,1.9)	51%	0.9 (0.6,1.3)
Hospitalizations
None	39%	—	53%	—
One or more	44%	1.2 (0.4,3.4)	61%	1.4 (0.7,2.7)
School absenteeism:
Less than five days	39%	—	51%	—
Five or more days	41%	1.1 (0.6,1.9)	63%	1.7 (1.1,2.7)†

P-value: ^†≤.05, ^‡≤.01 (based on logistic regression analysis).