The Asthma Podcast - Transcript September 2009

Luke: Welcome to the Asthma Podcast. Every month we’ll bring you news, research updates and ways you can support us. This month find out about volunteering opportunities at our running events this autumn. Also we have news of a study that suggests children with stressed parents who live in polluted areas have a higher asthma risk.

---

Luke: Asthma UK has several high profile running events coming up but if you want to get involved without breaking a sweat you could consider signing up as an event volunteer. To find out more we’re joined by Michelle Chan from our events team. Michelle, what type of things does an event volunteer do?

Michelle: We mainly need our volunteers to attend our cheering points along the course and also to help us cheer on our wonderful participants. Now, cheering is really important because it can really help give our participants a much needed boost. We also need volunteers to help to set up or take down fundraising stands, help with marshalling or signposting at an event, manage receptions for participants at the post-race reception. And also meeting and greeting participants.

Luke: So quite varied?

Michelle: Absolutely.

Luke: What events are coming up in the next few months?

Michelle: Ok so the first event we have coming up is the Three Peaks Challenge, which takes place between the 11-13 of September. And then we have the Great North Run, which is the worlds best loved half marathon and that’s taking place on Sunday, 20 September. And this is also Asthma UK’s key fundraising event as we have over 260 participants taking part in the race. On Sunday 11th of October we have the Royal Park’s Foundation half marathon so we’re basically looking for volunteers for any of these events.

Luke: Volunteering can be extremely rewarding can’t it? What are the benefits that people get from it?

Michelle: Our volunteers really help to create a great atmosphere for participants that help to make any event a success. So you can be part of that success. Also the support that participants receive really encourages them to do their very best on the day and raise vital funds for Asthma UK.

Luke: And how can people sign as volunteers?

Michelle: Well if you would like to become an events volunteer, all you need to do is contact our Events Team for more information. On 0800 121 62 55 or at events@asthma.org.uk

---

Luke: American researchers have found that children with stressed parents who live in polluted areas have a higher risk of asthma. To discuss this further, we’re joined by our Research Relations Manager Dr Elaine Vickers. Elaine, can you tell us a bit more about the study and its findings?

Elaine: So this result came from a really big Californian study. And there were 2,500 healthy children involved at the start of the study and the researchers are collecting ongoing information about these children over many years and doing a number of different analyses to find out the things that effect children’s health.

So in this particular part of the study, the researchers were trying to look at the pollution levels children were exposed to, their parents’ socio-economic background so how wealthy their parents are, their level of education. And look at the children’s risk of asthma, look at which children get asthma and which children didn’t over that period of time. And they found that when children lived in really polluted areas and their parents were also stressed, that really raised their risk of asthma. As did if there was a combination of living in a polluted area and the mother having smoked during pregnancy, again their risk of asthma was increased.

Luke: And how reliable do we think the results of this survey are, or the findings of this survey are?

Elaine: Well because it’s a really big study we can be quite confident that the effects that they found were real so we can be confident that in this group of children, yes air pollution combined with stress as they measured it, does together increase a child’s risk of asthma.

But as with all studies, there are drawbacks. No study can cover every angle so there are things like, they found that social standing and the parents’ level of education had an impact but you don’t know whether its definitely the income of the parents or something that goes along with that, like living in poor housing maybe was the factor. And they only estimated the pollution levels; they didn’t know what level of pollution the children were actually exposed to. So with all studies, there are things that are really good about the study and there are things that researchers just couldn’t tell which means like with many studies, you do need more research to back this up and say whether this is a real effect and whether we can say in the UK that the same effect occurs.

Luke: And what conclusions can people draw of it and what measures should they take to reduce the risk of their child getting asthma?

Elaine: I mean, its unrealistic to expect parents to suddenly reduce their stress levels or increase their income, to reduce their children’s risk of asthma. We know its an impossibility, but what we do know is that there’s increasing evidence linking up pollution levels with asthma risk so if possible we need to reduce children’s exposure to air pollution. We know that there’s a real risk associated with parents smoking around their children or women smoking during pregnancy. There are many many reasons why we urge people not to smoke, but certainly in pregnancy it has a range of harmful effects on the unborn child including increasing their risk of asthma. So again, we’ve more robust evidence and urge women not to smoke during pregnancy.