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 childhood
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 (Table 2). 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 burden
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. Hospitalizations
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 hospitalization
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 hospitalization
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. This
book 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?”