Is it true that asthma is increasing?

Yes, asthma has increased steadily in the United States
through the 1980s and 1990s, as in other Westernized
countries. There are more persons diagnosed with asthma
now than ever before in the United States.The prevalence
of asthma—that is the total number of cases of
asthma in a population at any given point in time—
continues to increase worldwide . It may also
be true that allergic conditions are on the increase. The
reason why asthma is increasing in the United States
and in other industrialized nations is unclear. A farreaching
international effort to understand the scope of
increasing asthma (and allergy) in young people led in
1991 to the formation of the ambitious and ongoing
International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood,
known as ISAAC, and accessible on the Internet
at http://isaac.auckland.ac.nz/. ISAAC describes itself
as “the largest worldwide collaborative research program
ever undertaken involving more than 100 countries
and 2 million children.” Findings that have emerged
from the ISAAC study include the observation that

English-speaking countries demonstrate the highest
prevalence rates for asthma and that Latin American
countries also have elevated asthma rates.
Of great concern to physicians are certain urban neighborhoods,
such as the South Bronx and East Harlem
in New York City, where rates of asthma hospitalization
and asthma deaths are among the highest in the nation,
and where nearly 20% of children have been diagnosed
with asthma.When looking at “the big picture” however,
U.S. data collected from 1980 to 1996 reveal, as mentioned
previously, an increase in asthma prevalence. Since
1995, there have also been increases in national rates
of office, clinic, and emergency room visits for asthma.
Those increases developed in parallel with a decrease in
the rates of hospitalization for asthma and of deaths
from asthma. Experts believe that the increase in the
number of outpatient visits is the result of better and more
effective asthma treatment in the setting of increasing
numbers of persons diagnosed with the disease. The
recorded drop in hospital admissions for asthma and
the reductions in the death rate are also consistent with
improved asthma care overall—an encouraging public
health statistic!