The Latest Data on Asthma 2011

The Allergy Dude would like to highlight a report I recently read that summarizes the latest available data on the status of asthma in the U.S. from 2009.   The source is the CDC, by Akinbami et al.

*  In 2009, the prevalence for the entire U.S.with asthma is 8.2% (=24.6 million people).  In 2001, the prevalence was 7.3%, with a increase of 12.3%.  The prevalence for all adults (7.7), women (9.7%), and children (9.6%), other groups, and even men (5.5%) has increased since 2001.  For example, in 2001 the prevalence for all children was 8.7%.

*  In 2008, persons with asthma missed 10.5 million school days and 14.2 million work days due to their asthma. 

*  In 2007, there were 1.75 million asthma-related emergency department visits and 456,000 asthma hospitalizations. Asthma emergency visit and hospitalization rates were higher among females than males, among children than adults, and among black than white persons.

If you're interested, go to the link to read the article and look at the graphs and tables.  Table 5 on page 10 shows the Healthy People 2010 objectives they used to assess asthma.  You can see the Healthy Peoples 2020 objectives in a prior post.