Asthma Deaths: A Look At The Statistics

About 5,000 people die from asthma each year. This works out to about 450 deaths every month, about 100 a week, and between 10 and 15 every day.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, annual asthma deaths have been on the rise for the last 20 years. The problem has been worsened by the fact that many are never properly diagnosed, and go untreated.

Asthma Deaths By Country

In 1999, the AIHW National Mortality Database in Australia conducted a study among industrialized countries worldwide to get accurate statistics on deaths from respiratory problems, including asthma, bronchitis and emphysema.

The study found that the countries with the highest death rates were mostly in northern Europe. Among the highest were Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Eastern European countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic also ranked fairly high. These countries all had a death rate of over 20 per 100,000 individuals of the population.

The lowest ranked countries, those that have fewer than 10 deaths per 100,000, were Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain and Japan.

Where did the United States rank? The US ranked pretty high, with 28 per 100,000 for men and 20 per 100,000 for women. This puts it pretty high, among the Eastern European countries previously mentioned.

Deaths By Age And Gender

It may be comforting to know that asthma deaths among children are very rare. In fact, children aged 0-17 are the most diagnosed segment of the population, which means that they can begin treatment early.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the death rate from asthma among women is 40% higher than among males.

Asthma And African Americans

A disproportionate number of asthma deaths each year are African Americans. It is estimated that more than a quarter of asthma deaths are African Americans. There are 200% more deaths from asthma among African Americans than among the next group, non-Hispanic whites.

There has been a sharp increase in asthma deaths among African American children since the early 1980's. According to the CBCF Health Organization, the number of African-American kids who died from asthma each year shot up 188% from 1980 to 1993.

To give you an idea of how serious this is, African American kids' chances of dying from asthma are 4 to 6 times that of other kids.

It's a grim subject, but here is some good news: Death from Asthma declined from 1996-2000 in the United States, according to a report from the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology

Risk Factors

Looking at the above statistics gives us some idea of what factors increase the risk of death from asthma.

Of course, age and severity of the asthma are big factors. The older an asthma sufferer gets, the more they have to be aware of effectively treating the symptoms.

Asthma hits those who live in inner cities the hardest. As we see from the statistics, African Americans are at a higher risk. Those who live in big cities have higher risk because of air pollution. Also, poor people who suffer unhealthy living condition and low access to the medications they need have a much higher risk.

Smoking, and drug and alcohol use exacerbate asthma symptoms and increase the risk of death. Those who suffer from severe asthma should avoid these behaviors altogether.

The most fatal aspect of asthma is that many people ignore or overlook their symptoms. Proper diagnosis is the first step to effective treatment.