Association of asthma severity and educational attainment at age 6-7 years in a birth cohort: population-based record-linkage study.

Background: There is conflicting research about the association between asthma and poor educational attainment that may be due to asthma definitions. Our study creates seven categories of current chronic and acute asthma to investigate if there is an association for poorer educational attainment at age 6-7 years, and the role of respiratory infections and school absence.

Methods: This study used a population-based electronic cross-sectional birth cohort 1998-2005, in Wales, UK, using health and education administrative datasets.