Table 1.

Analysis Variables: Survey Question, Coding, and Justification

Variable	Survey Question	Coding	Justification
Individual-level
Current Wheeze	Has your child had wheezing or whistling in the chest in the last 12 months? From the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC)	1=Yes 0=No	Wheezing is a common symptom of asthma. It is easily recognized by parents and is more specific to asthma than cough (Warren 1999). Current wheeze was selected instead of diagnosed asthma due to this study’s emphasis on immigration, a characteristic that shapes access to medical care and thus an asthma diagnosis.
Sex (Male)	What is the child’s sex?	1=Male 0=Female	Boys have higher rates of asthma and other respiratory health problems than girls (CDC 2013).
Socio-economic Status1	How many people are living or staying at this address? Which of the following best describes your yearly total household income for 2011 before taxes? 1=Less than $1,999 – 15=$150,000 or more	1=Poor, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services (2011) definitions of poverty status 0=Non-poor	Asthma rates are higher for children of lower socioeconomic status (Mitchell et al. 1989; Mielck et al. 1996).
	Which of the following best describes your yearly total household income for 2011 before taxes? 1=Less than $1,999 – 15=$150,000 or more	1=Affluent ($80,000 or more) 0=Not Affluent
General Health Status	How would you describe the overall health of the child? From the ISAAC	1=Very poor – 6=Excellent	Health status is used as a medical history variable to account for the child’s underlying state of health (Aligne et al. 2000).
BMI (body mass index)	How tall is the child as of now? How much does the child weigh as of now?	Reported height divided by the square of the reported weight	BMI is used as a medical history variable; being overweight is specifically associated with higher rates of asthma in Hispanic children (Morales et al. 2002).
Current smoking	At any time during the past 12 months, has anybody smoked inside your child’s home?	1=Yes 0=No	Smoking inside homes is an important cause of respiratory illness (Burr et al. 1999; Radic et al. 2011).
Mold	Has your child’s home had moldy or musty odors during the past 12 months?	1=Yes 0=No	Moldy/damp housing environments are associated with wheezing and asthma (Strachan 1988; Strachan & Sanders 1989; Williamson et al. 1997).
Length of Residence in El Paso (EP)	How long has this child lived in El Paso County?	1=‘For less than 12 months’- 5=‘Since the child’s birth’	Children’s asthma and allergy prevalence increased with longer residential duration in El Paso (Svendsen et al. 2009).
Primary Caretaker (PC) Born in the US	Primary caretakers were asked: “Where were you born?”	1=US-born 0=Foreign- born	Hispanic children born to US-born mothers have higher rates of asthma than the children of foreign-born mothers (Subramanian et al. 2009).
Neighborhood-level
% Foreign Born (Immigrant Density)	Percent of the census tract population not born in the US	Continuous variable	Foreign-born density in Chicago neighborhoods was protective for asthma and other respiratory diseases for foreign-born individuals (Cagney et al. 2007).

¹Socioeconomic status is measured using a categorical variable (i.e., affluent, middle class, and poor). Middle class is the reference group in the analyses, and includes all children defined as being both non-poor and not affluent.