Associations of Doctor-Diagnosed Asthma with Immigration Status, Age at Immigration, and Length of Residence in the United States in a Sample of Mexican American School Children in Chicago

Objectives. Among Mexican Americans in the United States, children who were born in the US had higher rates of asthma than their Mexico-born peers. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of doctor-diagnosed asthma with immigration-related variables and to investigate whether these associations could be explained by factors that may change with migration. Methods. We surveyed parents of 2,023 school children of Mexican descent and examined the associations of asthma with nativity, age at immigration, and length of residence in the US after adjusting for potential confounding variables. Results. In multivariate analyses, US-born children had a 2.42-fold (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.52–3.83) increased odds of asthma compared with their Mexico-born peers. Mexico-born participants who moved to the US before 2 years of age were almost twice as likely to experience asthma compared with Mexico-born children who moved to the US ≥2 years of age. In addition, Mexico-born participants who lived...