Untreated Allergy Among Middle School Students: Associations with Socioeconomic Adversities and Academic, Behavior, and Health Difficulties.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Many adolescents with allergy do not receive physician treatment (allergyuntreated). We explored its association with socioeconomic adversities and academic-behavior-health difficulties, which remain unaddressed. METHODS: This cross-sectional school-based-population study compared the above factors of middle-school adolescents with allergyuntreated and those with treated allergy (allergytreated) (mean age = 13.5 ± 1.2) from north-eastern France. Participants completed a questionnaire collecting socioeconomic adversities (nonintact family, low parents' education, insufficient family income, poor social support, suffered verbal/physical violence, and sexual abuse), low academic performance, excessive screen time, substance use, sleep difficulty, poor physical health, depressive symptoms, suicide attempt, poor quality of life, and allergytreated/allergyuntreated. RESULTS: Logistic regression models showed that allergyuntreated was associated with all the factors considered (sex-age-class-level-adjusted odds ratio (saclOR) reaching 3.94, p < .001) and the risk score (number of main criteria suffered sexual abuse, excessive screen time, poor quality of life, cannabis use, low parents' education, and poor social support) saclOR 4.75, 9.23, 15.64, and 31.73 (p < .001) for risk scores 1, 2, 3, and ≥4, versus risk score = 0 (pseudo-R2 = 11.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Socioeconomic adversities and academic-behavior-health difficulties may be used to detect adolescents with allergyuntreated for care.