Evidence Continues to Mount for How Exposure to Violence, Childhood Maltreatment, and Socioeconomic Factors Influence the Development and Severity of Asthma

The Celedón Laboratory at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, led by Division of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine chief Juan C. Celedón, MD, DrPH, ATSF, for many years, has probed how various psychosocial stressors, such as exposure to violence and maltreatment in childhood, affect the development and course of childhood asthma.

This work, among other accomplishments in the field, has shown that genetic and epigenetic variants associated with psychosocial stressor or chronic stress are also associated with childhood asthma.

In a new review article published recently in Pediatric Pulmonology, Dr. Celedón and Kristina Gaietto, MD MPH, a clinical instructor of pediatrics and a post-doctoral research fellow in the NIH-funded T32 Training Grant of the Division of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine, discuss the mounting evidence and recent significant findings in the field that show links between maltreatment as a child and exposure to various life stressors and asthma.

Drs. Gaietto and Celedón review the major studies conducted to date, their findings, and notably the significant gaps in the evidence base yet to be answered by large-scale prospective studies.

“In some cases, but not all, child maltreatment may weigh substantially in who is susceptible to developing asthma and what trajectory the disease may follow," says Dr. Gaietto. "We're uncovering more and more evidence for the sociologic factors that can influence disease. In many ways, asthma can be looked at through this lens. Our new review article is meant to give clinicians and research teams an up-to-date understanding of what we know and what we need to know about child maltreatment and asthma."

Read the review article using the link below.

Reference

Gaietto K, Celedón JC. Child Maltreatment and Asthma. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2022 May 18. Online ahead of print. Review.