Note: The study is supported by funding from the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing graduate training grant. First author Alicia Swartz was a TL1 predoctoral fellow in 2014-15.
A study that involved combing through more than 50 years of data to assess the link between asthma and daycare and preschool attendance may provide welcome reassurance to working parents. Early child care does not boost children’s risk for developing this common respiratory disease, according to the study led by researchers at UCSF and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco.
In fact, attending a child care facility is protective of asthma in children ages 3 to 5, lowering their odds of developing asthma by 34 percent, the authors concluded in the study publishing April 9, 2018, in the Journal of Asthma.
However, the results weren’t all good news, noted senior author and pediatrician Michael Cabana, MD, MPH, chief of the UCSF Division of General Pediatrics. While early child care did not increase asthma risk in children aged 6 to 18, its protective effect was not sustained in this age group. Additionally, in tots aged 2 and under, child care was associated with nearly twice the odds of wheezing, the whistling or rattling sound when breathing that may be due to the smaller airways of very young children in combination with a viral infection.