Tackling childhood asthma: How early-life conditions shape health inequalities

A new study has shed light on how early-life conditions contribute to social inequalities in childhood asthma across Europe.

Asthma is the most common long-term illness in children, affecting their daily lives and placing a burden on families. While the causes of asthma are complex, this new research highlights how a child’s environment before and shortly after birth can significantly influence their risk and may contribute to social inequalities in childhood asthma.

Published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, the study led by researchers from the School of Public Health, analysed data from over 100,000 mother-child pairs across seven European birth cohorts, as part of the EU Child Cohort Network. The researchers examined how socioeconomic factors during pregnancy, such as family income and parental education, affect the likelihood of a child developing asthma by age seven.

The findings reveal a clear pattern: children from less advantaged families are more likely to develop asthma, with the strongest inequalities observed in the UK and France, and the smallest in Denmark.

Crucially, the study also examined the reasons behind these inequalities. It found that early-life experiences such as maternal smoking during pregnancy, low birth weight, preterm birth, caesarean delivery, and shorter breastfeeding duration are more common in disadvantaged groups and partly help explain the increased asthma risk. These factors accounted for between 8% and 72% of the socioeconomic effect on asthma, depending on the country.

Lead author Dr Angela Pinot de Moira, Research Fellow in the School of Public Health, said: "Our research shows that early-life conditions consistently play a role in driving social inequalities in childhood asthma. This points to a real opportunity for public health interventions during pregnancy and infancy to help reduce these disparities."

The study underscores the importance of supporting mothers during the perinatal period through smoking cessation programmes, improved prenatal care, and breastfeeding support in order to promote healthier outcomes for all children, regardless of their background.