Asthma-like symptoms in homeless children in the Greater Paris area in 2013: prevalence, associated factors and utilization of healthcare services in the ENFAMS survey

Asthma remains poorly studied in homeless children. We sought to estimate the prevalence of asthma-like symptoms (ALS) and to identify the factors associated with ALS and healthcare service utilisation. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey of a random sample of sheltered homeless families was conducted by interviewing 801 parents of children (0–12 years) in 17 languages. ALS were defined as wheezing or night cough without fever during the previous year. Poisson regression models with robust error variance were used to compute prevalence ratios (PR) for factors associated with ALS and healthcare service utilisation for ALS. Results: The prevalence of ALS among the children was 19.9%. Poor housing sanitation was significantly associated with ALS, as being born in the European Union. Most of the children with ALS had used healthcare services (85.4%). The main barriers to accessing such services were having lived in France for less than 49 months, having difficulties in French an...