How Many Americans Have Asthma?

Asthma is a very common lung disease. It has been described in all ethnic groups and in all ages, from child-hood into the golden years. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center for Health Statistics reports that asthma currently affects more than 22.2 million Americans or 7.9% of the population, including over 6.7 million children younger than 18 years of age . Another way of looking at the information is that 7.3% of American adults currently have asthma, as do 9.3% of all young persons aged 15 years or younger .

Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood. It is also the primary cause of school absences due to a chronic condition. Young people aged 5–17 years with asthma miss more than 12.8 million school days annually in the United States. Asthma is responsible for interference with adults’ daily activities as well, given that over 10 million work days are lost annually to poorly controlled asthma. The cost of asthma is significant both for individuals and for our society as a whole. Experts refer to the bur-den of asthma. The CDC estimates that in 2006,asthma accounted for 10.6 million visits to office-based physicians, 1.3 million visits to hospital clinics, and 1.8 million visits to hospital emergency  departments. The rate of emergency department visits for asthma was higher in children than in adults, and the highest rate of asthma requiring emergency department care was for children 4 years of age and younger.

Hospi-talizations for asthma appear to be decreasing over recent years, and presently approximate close to half a million yearly, with higher rates of hospitalization among children than among adults. The highest rate of hospi-talization for treatment of asthma, similar to the rate of emergency room utilization is for children aged 4 and younger.Experts are interested in reducing the burden of asthma illness and the rates of hospitalization in the United States as in all other countries. The fact that the hospi-talization rates for asthma in the United States have been decreasing may reflect the beneficial effects of the  introduction of newer asthma therapies, including medications such as those referred to as “controller” or “maintenance” medicines, reviewed later in the text.

Mitbe will help you learn about asthma and good management practices, and it will present strategies that may assist you in better understanding your condition. Knowing that asthma is so common serves as a reminder that you are far from alone. Properly treated asthma allows for a full and rewarding lifestyle, and that fact, along with the fact that millions of American have been diagnosed with asthma, explains why you will see persons with asthma achieve just about everything, everywhere! I have met athletes with asthma, teachers with asthma, actors with asthma, and lawyers and doctors with asthma. As one patient of mine confided with a grin, “Doc, if I can brush and floss my teeth twice a day every day of my life,what’s the  big deal with taking a few more minutes to inhale medicine that keeps me healthy?”