Asthma diagnosis and treatmentVariation in total and specific IgE: Effects of ethnicity and socioeconomic status
Section snippets
Methods
This study involves women who delivered a child at a large tertiary hospital in Boston, Mass (Brigham and Women's Hospital). These women were screened for participation in the Epidemiology of Home Allergens and Asthma Study, which has previously been described.3, 14, 15 This analysis includes the 478 (95.8%) mothers enrolled in the study who had blood available for IgE measurements (377 white, 54 black, 26 Hispanic, 17 Asian, and 4 other). These subjects were the basis of previous reports.12, 13
Characteristics
Table I shows the baseline characteristics of the 882 women in this analysis. White women tended to be slightly older than black or Hispanic women. Black and Hispanic women tended to come from areas within the Boston city limits and areas with low socioeconomic indices. A greater proportion of black and Hispanic women cited Medicaid as their health insurance coverage compared with white women. Although the proportion of ever smoking was similar among the 3 groups of women, there were more black
Discussion
The main findings of our analysis are that black and Hispanic women have higher levels of total serum IgE and are more likely to be sensitized to a greater number of aeroallergens than white women. These findings remained significant after adjustment for area socioeconomic indicators. Our findings are supported by a geostatistical analysis (kriging) detailed in the Online Repository (www.mosby.com/jaci). Our kriging analysis showed that subjects living within the city limits of Boston had
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Supported by grant AI 35786 from the National Institutes of Health.