Inner city children are disproportionately affected by asthma and sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). However, little is known about the association SDB symptoms with asthma morbidity in this vulnerable population.
Assess the relationship between snoring frequency and asthma morbidity.
This study was part of The School Inner-City Asthma Study, a longitudinal prospective cohort study of children with persistent asthma who attended schools in the Northeast United States from 2008 to 2013. Participants had baseline assessments of asthma symptoms, snoring and allergy status. Caregivers completed quarterly surveys for 12 months on symptoms of asthma, snoring and healthcare outcomes. Snoring frequency (non-, rare-, sometimes-, habitual-snoring) and its relationship with asthma symptoms and asthma morbidity were assessed by mixed-effects models.
There were 1186 observations from 339 subjects. Mean age was 7.9 years; roughly half were male and majority were of minority race. Half were overweight or obese and 65.5% had atopy. At initial snoring assessment, 24.8% reported habitual snoring but report of snoring frequency varied over the study period. Multivariate analyses revealed increased odds of maximum asthma symptom days for habitual snoring compared to non-snoring (1.58 95% CI 1.19-2.10, p<0.002) and all other snoring categories. Habitual snoring was associated with greater odds of healthcare utilization (IRR 1.72, 95% CI 1.10-2.69, p=0.02) and worse asthma control (OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.05-2.11, p=0.03) compared to non-snoring.
Snoring is common among inner-city school-age children with asthma and habitual snoring is associated with increased asthma symptom burden and healthcare utilization.

Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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