Worldwide inequalities in care significantly impact respiratory health outcomes.1 2 Despite this, there are few studies examining how wheeze and asthma outcomes, including healthcare use and treatment decisions, vary with socioeconomic status and ethnicity in young children.

Therefore, it is highly relevant to acknowledge the paper by D Lo et al, ‘Association between socioeconomic deprivation, ethnicity, and health outcomes in preschool children with recurrent wheeze in England: a retrospective cohort study’. Healthcare data from almost 200 000 young children with documented wheeze and asthma based on diagnostic codes or prescriptions for asthma medication(s) were assessed. The authors present insights that children from the most deprived socioeconomic backgrounds and those with origins in South Asia and Africa used more acute healthcare services for wheeze and asthma exacerbations at both primary and secondary care levels. Children from more deprived socioeconomic backgrounds had a 20% higher …