A recent research study conducted by Jonathan I Silverberg, MS, of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York has shown that foreign-born children develop more allergies the longer they live in the United States. The research study looked at data from 91,642 children enrolled in the 2007-2008 National Survey of Children’s Health. The children’s ages ranged from newborn to 17 years old.
The researchers looked for children that were born outside of the United States, documented how long they lived in the United States and recorded information about allergies, specifically asthma, eczema, hay fever and food allergies.
Foreign-born children were 0.53 times as likely to develop asthma than those born in the states. Eczema was 0.43 times as likely to develop, and food allergies were .60 times as likely to be found.
Those that lived in the United States for over 10 years were at 3.04 times higher odds for developing allergies than those foreign born children that had been in the United States for two years or less.
“What we can take away here is that seeing this loss of childhood protection from eczema and hay fever after extended US residence implies that environmental factors may promote the development of allergic disease,” said Dr. Silverberg.
Ramie A. Tritt, MD, President of Atlanta ENT
