Associations of dog and cat ownership with wheezing and asthma in children: Pilot study of the Japan Environment and children's study

No previous study has used repeated measures data to examine the associations of dog/cat ownership with wheezing and asthma prevalence among children. This prospective study used repeated measurers analysis to determine whether dog/cat ownership in childhood is an independent risk factor for wheezin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2020-05, Vol.15 (5), p.e0232604
Main Authors: Taniguchi, Yu, Yamazaki, Shin, Michikawa, Takehiro, Nakayama, Shoji F, Sekiyama, Makiko, Nitta, Hiroshi, Mezawa, Hidetoshi, Saito-Abe, Mayako, Oda, Masako, Mitsubuchi, Hiroshi, Sanefuji, Masafumi, Ohga, Shouichi, Mise, Nathan, Ikegami, Akihiko, Shimono, Masayuki, Suga, Reiko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Asthma
Biology and Life Sciences
Birth weight
Cesarean section
Childbirth & labor
Childhood
Childhood asthma
Children
Children & youth
Childrens health
Cohort analysis
Dogs
Domestic cats
Early childhood education
Environmental health
Environmental studies
Families & family life
Family income
Health aspects
Human-animal relationships
Infants
Medical research
Medicine and Health Sciences
Newborn infants
Ownership
Pediatric research
Pediatrics
People and Places
Pets
Physiological aspects
Premature birth
Preventive medicine
Questionnaires
Research and Analysis Methods
Risk analysis
Risk factors
Studies
Time
Wheezing
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Summary:No previous study has used repeated measures data to examine the associations of dog/cat ownership with wheezing and asthma prevalence among children. This prospective study used repeated measurers analysis to determine whether dog/cat ownership in childhood is an independent risk factor for wheezing and asthma, after adjustment for gestational, socio-economical, and demographical confounders confounders, in Japan. We conducted a multicenter pilot study of the Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS) during 2009-2010. Among 440 newborn infants enrolled, 410 (52.8% males) were evaluated for dog/cat ownership in the home and history of wheezing and asthma in five follow-up questionnaire surveys (until age 6 years). Dog/cat ownership during follow-up period was categorized into four groups: 7.6% were long-term dog/cat owners, 5.9% were toddler-age owners, 5.9% were preschool-age owners, and 80.7% were never owners. The prevalence of wheezing during follow-up period increased from 20.8% to 35.4% and the prevalence of asthma increased from 1.3% to 16.3%. A fitted logistic generalized estimating equation models including important confounders showed no significant associations of the interaction between dog and/or cat ownership and follow-up time with the risks of wheezing and asthma. However, the risks of wheezing and asthma were slightly lower for long-term and toddler-age dog/cat owners than for preschool-age and never owners. The present findings suggest that dog and cat ownership from toddler-age does not increase the risks of wheezing and asthma compared with never owners among Japanese children.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0232604