Positive family relationships might help kids maintain good asthma management behaviors even in the face of difficult neighborhoods, finds a new study.

‘Although families may not be able to change their neighborhoods, they may be able to support better asthma outcomes in their kids through strong family relationships.’
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In the study, researchers sought to test whether there are social factors that can buffer children from the negative effects of difficult neighborhood conditions, focusing on one particular factor they thought would be important in the lives of children whether they had positive and supportive family relationships.Read More..





"We found significant interactions between neighborhood conditions and family relationship quality predicting clinical asthma outcomes," said Edith Chen, professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern and lead author of the study.
"When children lived in neighborhoods that were high in danger and disorder, the better their family relationships, the fewer symptoms and activity limitations they had, and the better their pulmonary function."
In contrast, Chen said, when children lived in neighborhoods that were lower in danger and disorder, their symptoms, activity limitations and pulmonary function were generally good, and the nature of their family relationships didn't really matter.
Using Google Street View, the researchers were able to take a virtual walk through each of the research participant's Chicago neighborhoods, and code for indicators of neighborhood danger or disorder, including evidence of graffiti, rundown or abandoned cars, bars or grates on windows and doors, and abandoned or boarded-up homes. That gave them a more objective indicator of the level of neighborhood danger and disorder that a participant is likely experiencing on a daily basis as they walk to places from their home.
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Chen said the research is important to the field of pediatrics because families often don't have options for moving out of neighborhoods that are challenging.
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"It's possible that when children have high-quality relationships with their family, family members can help their children prioritize asthma management, for example, perhaps by shielding them from neighborhood stressors to minimize the disruption to asthma routines," Chen said.
"But this is speculative at this point, and future research could test this idea by implementing family or parenting interventions in youth with asthma who live in high-danger neighborhoods and examining their effects on childhood asthma outcomes."
Source-Eurekalert