Prevalence of allergic rhinitis in Chinese children from 2001 to 2021: Meta analysis

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the prevalence of allergic rhinitis in Chinese children from 2001 to 2021, in order to provide data support for the prevention and treatment of allergic rhinitis in children. Methods: "Allergic rhinitis" "children" "adolescent" "infant" "prevalence" "epidemiology" were used in the main search terms. The combination of Mesh words and free words was adopted. CNKI, CBM, VIP, WanFang Data, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and The Cochrane Library for publications between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2021 were searched systemically and data were extracted from eligible studies by two independent reviewers. Supplementary collection was made by identifying retrospective references from the included literature. After study quality assessment, Meta analysis was completed using Stata 16.0 software. Results: A total of 20 cross-sectional studies were included, involving 54 886 cases. Meta analysis results showed that the overall prevalence of allergic rhinitis among the participants was 18.46% (95%CI:14.34%-22.59%). Subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of allergic rhinitis from 2012 to 2021 (19.75%) was higher than that from 2001 to 2011 (14.81%), and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). The prevalence of different regions from high to low was East China (22.77%), North China (20.82%), Northwest China (17.77%), Central China (16.62%), Southwest China (16.33%), Northeast China (16.16%) and South China (7.29%) respectively, the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). The prevalence of male (20.73%) was higher than that of female (16.34%), and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). The prevalence of Han nationality(17.31%) was higher than that of ethnic minorities (15.93%), and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). Conclusion: The prevalence of allergic rhinitis in Chinese children is high and the prevalence in children varies by publication year, region, sex and nationality.