Socioeconomic and environmental factors associated with asthma in children born in public and private health services in Brazil

Background: Identifying the factors socioeconomical and environmental associated with asthma in children of six years. Methods: Cross-sectional study of 672 children born in public and private maternity in Feira de Santana in Bahia State, Brazil. Dependent variable was symptoms of wheezing or whistling in the chest in last 12 months. Categorical variables socioeconomic and environmental were compared according to diagnosis of asthma in total sample and by public and private health using the chi square test or the Fischer`s exact. Logistic regression was used to identify independent predictors of asthma. A significance nível of 0.05 was adopted. Results: Prevalence of asthma was 13,8%. Factors associated with asthma in private health services was number of persons who sleep in the same room as the child <4 persons (p=0,015), pneumonia at some time in life (p=0,04) and maternal smoking during pregnancy (p=0,010) and in public health services the factors associated asthma were male gender (p=0,027),asthma in the mother (p<0,001) and pneumonia at some time in life (p<0,001) Conclusions: Prevalence of asthma was high and environment associated factor has been associated with asthma in children born in public and private health insurance, according to the hygiene hypothesis.