Asthma Trajectories in Early Childhood: Identifying Modifiable Factors

Background: There are conflicting views as to whether childhood wheezing represents several discreet entities or a single but variable disease. Classification has centered on phenotypes often derived using subjective criteria, small samples, and/or with little data for young children. This is particularly problematic as asthmatic features appear to be entrenched by age 6/7. In this paper we aim to: identify longitudinal trajectories of wheeze and other atopic symptoms in early childhood; characterize the resulting trajectories by the socio-economic background of children; and identify potentially modifiable processes in infancy correlated with these trajectories. Data and Methods: The Millennium Cohort Study is a large, representative birth cohort of British children born in 2000–2002. Our analytical sample includes 11,632 children with data on key variables (wheeze in the last year; ever hay-fever and/or eczema) reported by the main carers at age 3, 5 and 7 using a validated tool, the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood module. We employ longitudinal Latent Class Analysis, a clustering methodology which identifies classes underlying the observed population heterogeneity. Results: Our model distinguished four latent trajectories: a trajectory with both low levels of wheeze and other atopic symptoms (54% of the sample); a trajectory with low levels of wheeze but high prevalence of other atopic symptoms (29%); a trajectory with high prevalence of both wheeze and other atopic symptoms (9%); and a trajectory with high levels of wheeze but low levels of other atopic symptoms (8%). These groups differed in terms of socio-economic markers and potential intervenable factors, including household damp and breastfeeding initiation. Conclusion: Using data-driven techniques, we derived four trajectories of asthmatic symptoms in early childhood in a large, population based sample. These groups differ in terms of their socio-economic profiles. We identified correlated intervenable pathways in infancy, including household damp and breastfeeding initiation.