Bullying and lifetime asthma among children and adolescents in the United States

Purpose: To examine the association of experiencing bullying within the past year with the prevalence of lifetime childhood asthma in U.S. children and adolescents; and whether this association varies with sex of the child and selected socioeconomic indicators. Methods: We performed secondary analyses using data from the 2018 National Survey of Children's Health participants aged 6 to 17 years (n = 19,766). We used log-binomial regression to examine the association between bullying and lifetime childhood asthma before and after controlling for selected covariates. We also tested interactions of bullying with sex and selected socioeconomic indicators. Results: Children who experience bullying have a significantly greater probability of having asthma in adjusted analyses. The probability of childhood asthma increased with the frequency of bullying with prevalence ratios starting at 1.28 (95%CI:1.06, 1.55) for children bullied one to two times per year to 1.59 (95%:1.22, 2.09) for those being bullied at least four times per month. This association did not differ with sex of the child or selected socioeconomic indicators. Conclusions: We found that children who experienced bullying had a greater probability of having asthma relative to those who never experienced bullying. These findings highlight the impact of psychosocial stressors such as bullying as a nontraditional trigger in children with asthma. (c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study found that children and adolescents who experienced bullying had a higher prevalence of childhood asthma. The probability of childhood asthma increased with the frequency of bullying, regardless of the child's sex or socioeconomic indicators.