Background: Along with the biological risk factors, social environment plays an important factor for childhood asthma. Aims: This study aimed to evaluate whether household income is associated with asthma symptoms in children, and whether this association varies by the number of siblings. Methods: A total of 6,919 elementary school children in Seoul were enrolled in the study. Data were obtained from a web-based questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was based on the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood core module. The preva-lence of wheeze in the past 12 months and severe asthma symptoms were obtained. The potential risk factors for asthma symptoms included household income and the number of siblings. A multiple logistic regression analysis was used to calculate the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the risk factors of asthma symptoms. Results: The prevalence of current wheeze (wheeze in the past 12 months) was 5.2%. Household income and asthma symptoms were inversely associated after adjusting for other potential risk factors (p for trend=0.03). This association was modified by the num-ber of siblings. With two or more siblings, the effect of household income on asthma symptoms was not significant. However, low household income was still a significant vari-able for patients with fewer than two siblings (OR 1.41; 95% CI, 1.09-1.81). Conclusions: It appears that childhood asthma disparity is dependent on household in-come. Policies to improve childhood health inequities should be emphasized.
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