Asthma in Haifa children more than double the national average

The incidence of asthma among children living in the Haifa metropolitan area is more than double the national average, apparently due both to growing obesity and to the heavy air pollution caused by industries in the Haifa Bay area, according to a new study whose findings were presented this week at a conference at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Health Ministry, the Clalit health maintenance organization and the University of Haifa, examined 3,922 children aged 6 to 14 who live in seven towns in the Haifa area and are insured by Clalit. Of these, it found, 16 percent had asthma - more than double the national average of 7 percent, according to a study conducted in 2003.

The highest incidence of asthma, 21 percent, was found in Kiryat Yam, and the lowest, 9 percent, in Kiryat Bialik.

The researchers linked the high incidence of asthma to the area's severe air pollution and a growing problem of obesity among schoolchildren. In Kiryat Yam, for instance, not only was the incidence of asthma even higher than the norm for the area, but the proportion of overweight children, at 12 percent, was almost three times the average for the Haifa Bay area.

Indeed, the researchers concluded that obesity is even more closely linked to asthma than pollution is. A quarter of the area's overweight children were found to have asthma, compared to 16 percent of children with normal weights. Boys were also found to be more prone to asthma than girls.

Though the incidence of asthma in the Haifa Bay area is higher than the national average, it is similar to that in other Western countries. In the United States, for instance, 22 percent of children have asthma, while 21 percent have the disease in Britain and 18 percent in Canada.

Several international studies have previously found a link between pollution and asthma, and have also discovered that some people have a genetic predisposition to the disease. The current study found that greater exposure to sulfur dioxide - which is produced by the fuel burned in Bay-area factories - increased the risk of asthma among children in the Haifa area by 11 percent, and in Kiryat Yam specifically by 37 percent. Increased exposure to other pollutants produced by the organic compounds burned in many Bay-area plants increased the risk of asthma in the area's children by 8 percent.

Though Health Ministry researchers were involved in the study, senior ministry officials expressed reservations about it yesterday.

"Even though a higher incidence of asthma was found compared to other studies that have examined other regions in Israel, the method for measuring the incidence of asthma was different than that used in the other studies," one explained.

Moreover, he noted, the link to air pollution was not proven definitively, since obesity was also identified as a risk factor.

Nevertheless, he said, "the Health Ministry is in favor of reducing air pollution as much as possible."