Healthy lifestyles: higher benefits for deprived
Published: April 15, 2024
It is predicted that 33% of the world's population will be affected by asthma by 2025. Therefore, identifying social and behavioral factors associated with asthma may provide a basis for precise asthma prevention at the individual and population levels. However, existing studies have mainly focused on the separate effects of socioeconomic factors and behavioral lifestyle on the risk of asthma, without in-depth exploration and discussion of the complex association of socioeconomic status (SES) and lifestyle in asthma. Whether and to what extent lifestyle interventions might modify socioeconomic inequalities in asthma remains a controversial topic. Meanwhile, although lifestyle interventions are currently considered a public health policy priority to improve socioeconomic inequalities in health, this has not been demonstrated in asthma.
By incorporating a cohort of 223,951 participants from the UK Biobank, the study published by Fan et al. in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice comprehensively evaluated whether lifestyle factors are associated with asthma in adults, along with determining if and to what degree adopting healthy lifestyles can mitigate socioeconomic status disparities in asthma incidence. In this study, lifestyle scores were constructed utilizing multiple indicators, including smoking habits, physical activity levels, alcohol consumption patterns, adherence to healthy dietary patterns, sedentary behavior, and sleep duration. Socioeconomic status was assessed through the examination of income, education level, and occupational status, and adult-onset asthma cases were identified utilizing electronic health records. To explore the intricate relationships between socioeconomic inequalities, lifestyle factors, and asthma risk, the study employed Cox proportional hazards regression models.
This study reveals the disproportionate risk of unhealthy lifestyles associated with asthma in populations with different socioeconomic status. In particular, adherence to a healthy lifestyle may have higher health benefits for disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. This study contributes to the improvement of scalable and sustainable asthma prevention measures and the development of targeted health promotion strategies for populations with different social and behavioral characteristics.
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice is an official journal of the AAAAI, focusing on practical information for the practicing clinician.
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