Rhinoconjunctivitis Symptoms in Children and Adolescents with Asthma: A Longitudinal Clustering Analysis.

Background: Rhinoconjunctivitis phenotypes are conventionally described based on symptom severity, duration and seasonality and aeroallergen sensitization. It is not known whether these phenotypes fully reflect the patterns of symptoms seen at a population level.

Objective: To identify phenotypes of rhinoconjunctivitis based on symptom intensity and seasonality using an unbiased approach and to compare their characteristics.

Caregiver worry about COVID-19 as a predictor of social mitigation behaviours and SARS-CoV-2 infection in a 12-city U.S. surveillance study of households with children.

Objective: Understanding compliance with COVID-19 mitigation recommendations is critical for informing efforts to contain future infectious disease outbreaks. This study tested the hypothesis that higher levels of worry about COVID-19 illness among household caregivers would predict lower (a) levels of overall and discretionary social exposure activities and (b) rates of household SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Methods: Data were drawn from a surveillance study of households with children ( = 1913) recruited from 12 U.

The 'SmartNIALMeter' electrical appliance disaggregation dataset.

Electrical disaggregation, also known as non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) or non-intrusive appliance load monitoring (NIALM), attempts to recognize the energy consumption of single electrical appliances from the aggregated signal. This capability unlocks several applications, such as giving feedback to users regarding their energy consumption patterns or helping distribution system operators (DSOs) to recognize loads which could be shifted to stabilize the electrical grid. The project "SmartNIALMeter" brought together universities, companies and DSOs and involved the collection of a large data corpus comprising 20 buildings with a total of 100 electrical appliances for a period of up to two years at a sampling interval of five seconds.

Viral and non-viral episodes of wheezing in early life and the development of asthma and respiratory phenotypes among urban children.

Background: Viral wheezing is an important risk factor for asthma, which comprises several respiratory phenotypes. We sought to understand if the etiology of early-life wheezing illnesses relates to childhood respiratory and asthma phenotypes.

Methods: Data were collected prospectively on 429 children in the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) birth cohort study through age 10 years.

Follow-up to Adolescence after Early Peanut Introduction for Allergy Prevention.

Background: A randomized trial demonstrated consumption of peanut from infancy to age 5 years prevented the development of peanut allergy. An extension of that trial demonstrated the effect persisted after 1 year of peanut avoidance. This follow-up trial examined the durability of peanut tolerance at age 144 months after years of ad libitum peanut consumption.

Relationships between lung function, allergy, and wheezing in urban children.

Background: Allergic sensitization and low lung function in early childhood are risk factors for subsequent wheezing and asthma. However, it is unclear how allergic sensitization affects lung function over time.

Objective: We sought to test whether allergy influences lung function and whether these factors synergistically increase the risk of continued wheezing in childhood.

Early-Life Exposure to Air Pollution and Childhood Asthma Cumulative Incidence in the ECHO CREW Consortium.

Importance: Exposure to outdoor air pollution contributes to childhood asthma development, but many studies lack the geographic, racial and ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity to evaluate susceptibility by individual-level and community-level contextual factors.

Objective: To examine early life exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen oxide (NO2) air pollution and asthma risk by early and middle childhood, and whether individual and community-level characteristics modify associations between air pollution exposure and asthma.

Developing a Prediction Model for Determination of Peanut Allergy Status in the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) Studies.

Background: The Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) study team developed a protocol-specific algorithm using dietary history, peanut-specific IgE, and skin prick test (SPT) to determine peanut allergy status if the oral food challenge (OFC) could not be administered or did not provide a determinant result.

Objective: To investigate how well the algorithm determined allergy status in LEAP; to develop a new prediction model to determine peanut allergy status when OFC results are not available in LEAP Trio, a follow-up study of LEAP participants and their families; and to compare the new prediction model with the algorithm.

Methods: The algorithm was developed for the LEAP protocol before the analysis of the primary outcome.

Multi-omic association study identifies DNA methylation-mediated genotype and smoking exposure effects on lung function in children living in urban settings.

Impaired lung function in early life is associated with the subsequent development of chronic respiratory disease. Most genetic associations with lung function have been identified in adults of European descent and therefore may not represent those most relevant to pediatric populations and populations of different ancestries. In this study, we performed genome-wide association analyses of lung function in a multiethnic cohort of children (n = 1,035) living in low-income urban neighborhoods.

Associations between outdoor air pollutants and non-viral asthma exacerbations and airway inflammatory responses in children and adolescents living in urban areas in the USA: a retrospective secondary analysis.

Background: Asthma prevalence and severity have markedly increased with urbanisation, and children in low-income urban centres have among the greatest asthma morbidity. Outdoor air pollution has been associated with adverse respiratory effects in children with asthma. However, the mechanisms by which air pollution exposure exacerbates asthma, and how these mechanisms compare with exacerbations induced by respiratory viruses, are poorly understood.

Gene therapy preferences and informed decision-making: Results from a National Hemophilia Foundation Community Voices in research survey.

Introduction: To inform education and treatment discussions, it is important to understand how persons with haemophilia prefer to learn about and discuss new therapies and to identify variables that influence decision-making.

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate preferences and variables which influence decision-making related to gene therapy and other novel haemophilia therapies.

Methods: An online survey was sent to men with severe haemophilia enrolled in the National Hemophilia Foundation Community Voices in Research online platform for patient-powered research.

Mepolizumab for urban children with exacerbation-prone eosinophilic asthma in the USA (MUPPITS-2): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trial.

Background: Black and Hispanic children living in urban environments in the USA have an excess burden of morbidity and mortality from asthma. Therapies directed at the eosinophilic phenotype reduce asthma exacerbations in adults, but few data are available in children and diverse populations. Furthermore, the molecular mechanisms that underlie exacerbations either being prevented by, or persisting despite, immune-based therapies are not well understood.

Seasonal airway microbiome and transcriptome interactions promote childhood asthma exacerbations.

Background: Seasonal variation in respiratory illnesses and exacerbations in pediatric populations with asthma is well described, though whether upper airway microbes play season-specific roles in these events is unknown.

Objective: We hypothesized that nasal microbiota composition is seasonally dynamic and that discrete microbe-host interactions modify risk of asthma exacerbation in a season-specific manner.

Methods: Repeated nasal samples from children with exacerbation-prone asthma collected during periods of respiratory health (baseline; n = 181 samples) or first captured respiratory illness (n = 97) across all seasons, underwent bacterial (16S ribosomal RNA gene) and fungal (internal transcribed spacer region 2) biomarker sequencing.

Heterogeneity of magnitude, allergen immunodominance, and cytokine polarization of cockroach allergen-specific T cell responses in allergic sensitized children.

Background: Characterization of allergic responses to cockroach (CR), a common aeroallergen associated with asthma, has focused mainly on IgE reactivity, but little is known about T cell responses, particularly in children. We conducted a functional evaluation of CR allergen-specific T cell reactivity in a cohort of CR allergic children with asthma.

Methods: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were obtained from 71 children, with mild-to-moderate asthma who were enrolled in a CR immunotherapy (IT) clinical trial, prior to treatment initiation.