Original Articles
A longitudinal study of the prevalence of asthma in a community population of school-age children*,**

https://doi.org/10.1067/mpd.2002.123764Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective: Using a unique county-wide resource that links all health care providers' medical records to assess current and “ever” prevalence of physician-diagnosed asthma. To describe the age and sex rates and temporal trends in new asthma diagnoses and associations with race and socio-economic status. Study design: A longitudinal retrospective evaluation of a population-based cohort of school children using linked medical and school records. Results: Overall, 17.6% of children in grades kindergarten through 12 had a physician diagnosis of asthma and 12.9% had an asthma-related visit within the past 2 years. An additional 19.7% had visits for reactive airway disease or recurrent wheezing or bronchospasm with no diagnosis of asthma. Children provided with free and reduced-cost lunches had lower cumulative and incident asthma rates from birth through their current school age. Race was not related to rates of physician-diagnosed asthma. There was a significant temporal increase in rates of new asthma diagnoses. Conclusions: In this community, 1 in 3 children have had a physician-documented recurrent wheezing-type illness, and 1 in 6 were diagnosed with asthma. Diagnoses rates were directly related to socioeconomic status. (J Pediatr 2002;140:576-81)

Section snippets

Methods

This was a longitudinal retrospective medical records review study of the care provided to a cohort of school children from birth or their first medical visit to any Olmsted County, Minnesota health care provider to the present.

Results

The cohort included 1370 (48.7%) girls and 1446 (51.3%) boys. As of January 1, 2000 the mean age of the children in the cohort was 11.7 years (median, 11.2; range, 5.3-22.1). Overall, 17.6% of the children (n = 496) had one or more recorded diagnosis of asthma. Forty-one (1.6% of the total cohort) children had only a single visit with a diagnosis of asthma. Overall, 16% of the children had multiple diagnoses consistent with chronic asthma.

Asthma diagnoses were 1.5 times more common in boys than

Discussion

The cumulative incidence of physician-diagnosed childhood asthma in this community is more than twice that reported from National Health Interview Survey data and comparable with that reported in inner-city communities.4, 5, 8, 13, 21, 22 The longitudinal data confirm the sex-related differences in incident and cumulative incidence rates hypothesized from cross-sectional data27, 28 and the continuing increase in physician-diagnosed childhood asthma cases in Olmsted County.19 However, the data

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    *

    Supported by the American College of Asthma Allergy and Immunology.

    **

    Reprint requests: Barbara Yawn, MD, MSc, Olmsted Medical Center, 210 Ninth St SE, Rochester, MN 55904.

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