A new study on the linkage of Asthma with educational attainment says that the disease does not adversely impact a child's educational performance.
The team of researchers says that not asthma but ethnicity and social deprivation could be responsible for poorer educational outcomes.
Chris Griffiths, Professor of Primary Care at the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, at the Blizard Institute, part of Queen Mary University of London, said: "We wanted to test whether asthma is linked with poorer academic achievement as this could affect a child's chances of success later on in life. Instead we found children with asthma did as well as, or slightly better than their peers in these tests.
"These findings will reassure parents of children with asthma - and teachers. Policymakers should target social deprivation and ethnicity in order to improve our children's educational attainment."
As a part of the study researchers from Queen Mary, University of Edinburgh and Mayhew Harper Associates analyzed the data of 12,136 children from 97 schools in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets - the UK's third most deprived borough.
Each child had appeared for at least one national examination at Key Stages 1-3 over a four-year period. Researchers analysed the children's educational results alongside clinical, housing and benefits data to understand the effect of asthma, social adversity and ethnicity.
Social adversity was associated with significantly poorer performances as were mental health problems and special educational needs. Bangladeshi children were found to have significantly worse results than white children. But it was not the case with other minority ethnic backgrounds.
Journal PLOS ONE has published the findings this study.
--with inputs from ANI
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