First results from the URECA study
The Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) study is a birth cohort study that was established by the Inner-City Asthma Consortium to assess the influence of environmental factors on immune development and the development of asthma in children living in urban environments.
In and article published in the February 2011 issue of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical immunology (JACI), Wood and colleagues provide the first results from this study with data through 12 months of age. Key outcomes included wheeze in 49%, 2 or more episodes of wheeze in 23%, eczema in 30%, and detectable IgE to foods 32% and cockroach in 4%. Environmental assessment revealed elevated household dust levels to cockroach in 40%, mite in 19%, cat in 25%, and mouse in 29%, with 66% of homes housing at least 1 smoker. Associations were detected between wheezing and cotinine levels, maternal stress, and maternal depression, whereas cytokine responses to innate and adaptive stimuli were inversely related to eczema.
They conclude that in this birth cohort of inner-city infants, low cytokine responses may be a risk factor for eczema, whereas a variety of adverse environmental exposures contribute to wheezing. These findings provide evidence of specificity in the interactions between immune development, environmental exposures, and the development of early features that might predict future asthma.
10-0576, Relationships among environmental exposures, cord blood cytokine responses, allergy, and wheeze at one year of age in an inner-city birth cohort (URECA)
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI) is the official scientific journal of the AAAAI, and is the most-cited journal in the field of allergy and clinical immunology.