CDC report on children's respiratory problems

Report on children's health in the US released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Nine million U.S. children under age 18 have been diagnosed with asthma at some point in their lives, and more than 4 million have had an asthma attack in a year.

12 percent of children under the age of 18 have been diagnosed with asthma. Boys (14 percent) were more likely than girls (10 percent) to have been diagnosed with asthma. Children in poor families (16 percent) were more likely to have been diagnosed with asthma than children in families that were not poor (11 percent).

Non-Hispanic black children were more than twice as likely as Hispanic children to have had an asthma attack in a year (9 percent vs. 4 percent).

The report examined a number of health topics and found that 12 percent or 9 million U.S. children also suffered from respiratory allergies in 2002. Ten percent of children suffered from hay fever and 11 percent suffered from other allergies.

Respiratory allergies were more prevalent among children living in the South (15 percent) than in the Midwest (12 percent), Northeast (11 percent) or West (10 percent). Non-Hispanic white children (14 percent) and non-Hispanic black children (12 percent) were more likely than Hispanic children (9 percent) to have had respiratory allergies.