The Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) birth cohort study: design, methods, and study population

BMC Pulmonary Medicine

Table 4 Characteristics of the newborns enrolled in the allergic and non-allergic families cohorts

	Allergic Families		Non-Allergic Families
Characteristic	n	%	N	%
	560	100.0	49	100.0
Race or ethnicity*
Hispanic of any race	115	20.8	10	20.4
Black alone	386	69.8	37	75.5
White alone	7	1.3	0	0.0
More than one race	38	6.9	2	4.1
All others	7	1.3	0	0.0
Missing	7	--	0	--
Sex
Male	287	51.2	25	51.0
Female	273	48.8	24	49.0
Gestational age in weeks
34	9	1.6	0	0.0
35	13	2.3	0	0.0
36	25	4.5	1	2.0
37	61	10.9	6	12.2
38	100	17.9	10	20.4
39	173	30.9	15	30.6
40	118	21.1	11	22.4
41	59	10.5	6	12.2
42	2	0.4	0	0.0
Type of delivery
Spontaneous vaginal	342	61.1	31	63.3
Assisted vaginal	43	7.7	4	8.2
Elective c-section	68	12.1	12	24.5
Non-elective c-section	107	19.1	2	4.0
Breastfed at birth	289	57.2	29	61.7
Breastfeeding at 3 mos.	121	24.0	13	27.7
Household tobacco smoke exposure at 3 mos.	263	58.7	23	56.1
Continuous measures	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Gestational age (weeks)	38.7	1.5	39.0	1.3
Birthweight (grams)	3236.8	514.4	3211.8	503.9
Length (cm)	50.1	2.5	49.9	2.7
Head circumference (cm)	33.6	1.6	33.3	2.2
5-minute Apgar score	8.9	0.5	8.9	0.5

*Determined by the open-ended question posed to the mother, "How would you describe the race, nationality, or ethnic background of your baby?"

ISSN: 1471-2466