Associations between psychosocial stress, child's anxiety, and lung function in mid-childhood

Reducing the risk of respiratory disease during the plastic stages of lung development could have long-term health impacts. Psychosocial stress has been previously linked to adverse childhood respiratory outcomes, but the influence of child's anxiety and sex differences has not been completely elucidated. To evaluate the association among maternal stress, child anxiety, and lung function in children and to explore differences by sex. Cross-sectional analyses included 294 mother-child pairs from the Programming Research in Obesity, Growth, Environment and Social Stressors (PROGRESS) birth cohort in Mexico City. Children's lung function was tested once at ages 8 to 13 years of age, and height- and sex-adjusted z-scores were estimated for forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in 1 second, forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity and forced expiratory flow between 25% and 75%. Maternal stress was assessed through the Crisis in Family Systems—Revised (CRISYS-R) survey, used to report negative life events experienced in the past 6 months and dichotomized at the median (