Household fuel use, smoking and prevalence of self-reported allergic rhinitis in university students in Palestine: a cross-sectional study
Date
2024-11-20
Authors
El Sharif Nuha
Hnaihen Lana
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Frontiers in Allergy
Abstract
Purpose: In Palestine, few studies investigated the prevalence of allergies and the
factors associated with their occurrence. An online survey was conducted on
health complex University students in Jerusalem to determine the prevalence
of allergy rhinitis (AR) and its relationship with indoor environmental exposures.
Methods: This study employed a modified online Google form of the Global
Asthma Network’s Adult Questionnaire. The data were reported as frequency
and percentage. The chi-square test of independence was performed to
investigate the association between AR diagnosis and other factors.
Multivariable models were used to identify the independent risk factors for AR
after adjusting for potential confounders.
Results: Data was collected from a total of 819 participants. The mean age of the
participants was 20 ± 2 years and 78.1% (n = 640) were females. The AR
diagnostic rate was 10.3%. In addition, having asthma and eczema were found
to be substantially associated with AR. Additionally, a family history of AR and
other allergens were major predictors of AR. The findings revealed that
utilizing animal dung for heating increased the likelihood of AR fourfold
(AOR = 4.870, p-value = 0.004), whereas e-cigarette vaping increased the
possibility of AR by 2.5 times. However, using natural gas for cooking was
not significantly associated with AR, and participant age was only slightly
associated with AR diagnosis.
Conclusions: Our study found that the AR prevalence rate is low when
compared to the same population in other countries. Genetics, biomass fuel
consumption, and e-smoking are all significant risk factors for AR in Palestine.
An awareness campaign must be developed to educate university students
and the general public about the risks of smoking, indoor air pollution,
respiratory disorders, and AR. Longitudinal research is required to discover
whether these associations are only transient.
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Citation
El Sharif N and Hnaihen L (2024) Household fuel use, smoking and prevalence of selfreported allergic rhinitis in university students in Palestine: a cross-sectional study. Front. Allergy 5:1492213. doi: 10.3389/falgy.2024.1492213