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The effects of climate change on respiratory allergies during the pediatric age
The results of a survey, spread through the SIMRI newsletter from 2020 to 2021, show the impact of climate change on respiratory health during childhood observed by Italian SIMRI members pediatricians, and the need to increase the education on this current issue.
In January 2020 the authors created an anonymous questionnaire composed by 21 questions on personal data (age, gender, work place and years of experience), knowledge and awareness of the effects of climate change (CC) on health and the perception of the impact of CC on allergic pediatric diseases epidemiology and severity. The link to the survey compilation was spread through the SIMRI newsletter from February 2020 to February 2021.
Most participants (95.7%) were interested in this issue, 91% declared they have noticed an increase of allergic diseases incidence (70.1% both asthma and rhinitis) and 45.3% an increase of asthma and rhinitis severity.
In addition 70.9% reported a higher increase in children living in urban areas compared with children living in rural areas and a great number of pediatricians declared to have observed an increase in the number of children with positive allergy tests for pollens and molds.
But only 61.5% of participants consult local pollen calendars and only 56.4% know the “thunderstorm asthma”.
The “latent class analyses” (LCA) divided the participants in two groups, one with “poor knowledge” and an other one with “good knowledge”; the subjects of the second group had a longer work experience, had noticed an increase of children with allergic tests positive for pollens and more frequentely used Internet to obtain information about CC.
This is the first study to investigate the awareness and the knowledge of pediatricians through the application of LCA.
Although the majority of the participants are aware that CC represents a great future challenge and are very interested in this subject, the survey stresses the importance to increase pediatricians formation on the effects of CC on respiratory allergic diseases and on human health.
Bibliography
Lauletta M, Moisè E, La Grutta S, et al. Climate advocacy among Italian pediatric pulmonologists: a national survey on the effects of climate change on respiratory allergies. Pediatric Pulmonology. 2022; 1-9. Doi: 10.1002/ppul.25843
