OBJECTIVE Exposure to indoor pollutants and allergens has been speculated to cause asthma symptoms and exacerbations and influence the risk of developing asthma. The aim of this article is to review the medical literature regarding the role of the indoor environment on inner-city childhood asthma. DATA SOURCES A literature search was performed in PubMed. Studies focusing on inner-city indoor ...

BACKGROUND Rat allergen has proved to be an important cause of IgE-mediated hypersensitivity in the occupational setting. The prevalence and significance of rat allergen in homes has not been studied. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of rat allergen in the homes of inner-city children with asthma and to examine the relationship between rat allergen exposure,...

BACKGROUND Despite increasing awareness of the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program guidelines, the relative contribution of symptom frequency or pulmonary function to the recommended asthma severity levels remains poorly understood. OBJECTIVE To determine whether adding lung function measurements to clinical history substantially changes the asthma severity classification, thereb...

There are few processes more central to the social and cultural transformation of the inner city in the past half century than gentrification. The social and economic changes that have engendered gentrification have transformed its character and meaning; it has become principally a strategy for redevelopment of brown field sites by the state and capital interests. Based on research in the forme...

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) are analyzed to examine whether adolescents living in low-income urban areas have less accurate information about labor market institutions than teens in more affluent communities, and whether information influences educational attainment. All adolescents seem to implicitly underestimate the educational requirements of their occupationa...

OBJECTIVE To determine the characteristics of hunger in young children who attend ambulatory pediatric clinics in a midwestern city. DESIGN Consecutive sample. SETTING Ambulatory pediatric clinics of an inner-city teaching hospital. PARTICIPANTS English-speaking caregivers of 2578 children younger than 5 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Structured survey measures of hunger, family characteri...