Ecological study of socio-economic indicators and prevalence of asthma in schoolchildren in urban Brazil

BMC Public Health

Table 2 Results of the linear regression between asthma prevalence (%) and health and socio-economic indicators; outcome: percentage (%) of children with wheezing in the last 12 months in the study population

	6–7 years (11 surveys)				13–14 years (16 surveys)
Health and socio-economic indicators	bivariable analysis*		multivariable analysis*		bivariable analysis*		multivariable analysis*
	β	P	β	P	β	P	β	P
In the survey year
Infant Mortality 1: in the survey year (per 1,000)	0.17	0.353			0.19	0.164	0.47	<0.001
Illiteracy rate (percent)	0.01	0.981			-0.49	0.096	-1.06	<0.001
Percent of poor	0.12	0.400			-0.05	0.684
Sanitation: percent of houses with poor sanitation	0.08	0.065	0.06	0.061	0.08	0.128
Average Income	-0.01	0.722			0.07	0.355
Water supply	-0.16	0.350			-0.11	0.591
HDI – Human Development Index	-32.70	0.333			21.86	0.477
GINI coefficient for wealth inequality	10.22	0.716			0.46	0.043
Mortality rate for external causes per 10,000	0.14	0.037	0.15	0.007	0.65	0.203
Hospital beds per 10,000	0.58†	0.384			0.96	0.260
At birth
Infant mortality 2: at birth (per 1,000)	0.12	0.336	0.14	0.101	-0.04‡	0.512

Notes: *bivariable linear regression with each variable one at a time and multivariable with selected variables together; † one city excluded for missing data, based on 10 surveys; ‡ one city excluded for missing data, based on 15 survey.

ISSN: 1471-2458