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Parents often ask, “Will my child outgrow asthma?” Investigators in Ontario examined persistence of disease using administrative data for 34,216 children who were born in 1994 and were diagnosed with asthma before age 6 years. Diagnosis of asthma was based on a single asthma-related hospitalization or two asthma-related physician claims within 3 years before age 6.
About half the children had persistent asthma, defined as any hospitalization or physician visit for asthma from age 6 to 12 years. Factors that were significantly associated with persistent asthma were older age at diagnosis, male sex, greater use of health services during the first year after diagnosis, atopic conditions before age 6, living in an urban area, and lower birth wei…